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Polonius What do you read, ni}- lord? 
Hamlet. Words, words, words! 



THRICE WORDS 

OR RHYMES OR REASONS • 
BY 

JOHN WILLIAM CONWAY 



"Men have ever built 
Their own small world in the great world of all." 

—Goethe. 



KANSAS 

The Norton Champion 
1894 



*^'MAYi* 1894 ) 









Copyrig-ht, 1894, by 
J. W. CONWAY. 



PREFATORY NOTE. 
I HE author has expended considerable pa- 
tience and money in carrying and conceal- 
ing a hundred or more poems in his trunk for 
the last twenty years. He takes this opportu- 
nity to air a few, employing his own idle press 
and type for the purpose. 



CONTENTS: 




This Book 


1 


Invocation 


3 


Fishy. 


7 


Rose and Moss 


8 


Metempsychosis . 


10 


Sonnet 


13 


Battle Flag-s 


14 


Two Mottoes 


• . 16 


The Ivost Prayer 


18 


Cassandra 


20 


Experiments 


23 


Toute a Toi . 


24 


A Smiling- Judge 


26 


To Father 


28 


Sir Butterfly 


33 


To Elder B . 


34 


Centennial Hopes 


38 


^sop's Hare 


41 


Sweet Life 


43 


Sub Rosa 


44 


Traitors . 


46 


Venus sans Adonis 


48 


Honesty Non Est 


. ,54 


A Christmas Gift . 


56 


Echo 


65 



CONTENTS. 




M. Estelle G. . . . 


66 


On a Pamting- 


68 


Gtiinevere's Ivaiuent 


70 


Star of the East 


75 


Dying- the Rose . 


^7 


Chicag-o 


81 


June .... 


82 


The Poesy of a Rin.g 


84 


A Fellow Traveler 


88 


Patholog-y of Tears 


92 


Court of Honor 


98 


An Arizona Tomb . 


99 


A Cynic's Tale . . 


115 


Cards— Whist 


122 


The Joker 


123 


Fortunes 


123 


Edith . . . . 


138 


The Red, Red West 


140 


Inez' Song . . ' . 


141 


Sonnets— Cliff Dweller 


142 


Prof. Wynn . 


143 


Post Mortem 


144 


The Sonnet 


145 


The Suicide 


145 


The Poet 


147 


Truth 


148 


Sea Foam, a fragment 


149 



'*Say much where little should be said, 
lyay ou thy censure dextrously." 

— A n drew L a iig . 



'J^ HIS BOOK is like a grave where dreams 
Sleep 171 repose allied to death 
Which intimates another life; it seems 
The tomb of thoughts, zahims, heroes, themes, - 
Will they live after? Fancy' s breath 
Dilates the nostrils of their clay 
And hope looks to the judgment day 
When critics pointing to the right or 
Left, damns with faint praise me, the ivriter. 



INVOCATION. 

(WITH APOI^OGIES.) 

'*A poet born" has not been proudly written 
In burnished letters on my natal star, 

Nor by the wan Nine madly am I smitten 
To rave in verse as real poets are. 

No lover who unbosoms shafts of Cupid 

Shot in the dark, aimed blindly at the neck. 

Am I; than be arraig-ned such blooming- dupe I'd 
With horns or cap and bells my skull bedeck. 

No poet but a Kansan — for my health: 

The prairies swarm with invalids who feel ease 

In every robust enterprise for wealth, 
All patriots — and tig-hters like Achilles. 



4 INVOCATION. 

No madman either; tho' daft luneling seeurs 
The m^odern rhym^er who dares publish verses 

To tell like spookish dame his nightly dreams, 

Or day dreams for that matter, which far worse is. 

To one who outlined finished character, 

As Euclid figures, with few lines to fetter a 

Conception to full vision, I refer 
In poet, madman, lover one, etc. 

Were I implored to waste an invocation 
On certain muses famous in the Greek, 

I should obeying lose a rare occasion 
To glorify a theory more unique. 

This specimen may not be so adroit 
As to evade bards who scale Hellas lamely; 

It may lack Attic salt, be fresh, be raw; 't 
Is legalized in words and symbols, namely: 



INVOCATION. 

Hail, Kansas, Muse of Advertising-, hail! 

Inspire your bard to measure rhythmic feet 
Of rhyme smooth as your zephyr, or if stale 

The phrase, terrific as your cyclone be 't. 

Hail, Kansas, puifed-up Muse the Tenth, as I'm 
Informed! Beyond Parnassus you must elbow 

Your starward course, o'er difficulties climb, 

Drouths, gfrasshoppers, detractors who to hell g-o. 

Hail, Kansas! or if weary hailing-, storm! 

Storm every adverse critic in his castle, 
Which, shake from moat to barbacan, alarm 

Sarcastic wits with your wild razzle dazzle. 

Rant, hail, fume, storm, my fickle Kansas Muse, 

But after come all calm!— 

(Aside) Dank Ivcthe's waters 
Dividing fire from ice can not produce 

Forgetful contraries to equal aug-ht hers. 



INVOCATION. 



Pure air, brig-ht skies enamoured are of Kansasi 
While similies impoverish marbled Italy — 

Pink, wrinkled, painted Italy! No man says 
It rivals Kansas' clime not knowing- it a lie. 

Smile, sunny Kansas! that an inspiration 

Is in itself and of its own accord; 
Your sunbath adds new life, is re-creation. 

Puts burning* eloquence in heart and word. 

With such a State (and, printer, emphasize 
Initial S) with such a m.use here hinted, 

Touch pen, touch paper! gained is laurel prize 
While liquid poetry flows on unstinted. 

So, Kansas, kindly muse, return some favor 
To one who sweat, froze, starved for you — and lied; 

While neither has indulg-ed the best behavior. 
Puff lavishly — the critics I'll deride. 



FISHY. 



Fisherman. Rolf, what fish did swallow Jonah? 
R01.F. A whale. 

— Harold. 



A \xm,% learning- hath been called a thing- 
Of dang-er; here the error in cetology 
Amazes scientists in this wild fling: 

At rabble ig-norance whose voice is free 

To slander thus our mammal of the sea. 
Who is the Jonah? Rolf, unless you wish 
To blig-ht the laureled Tennyson, tho' he 

In earnest or in sarcasm serve this dish 
Of blubbered paradox: The whale is not a fish. 



ROSE AND MOBS. 

A ivUMP of moss found by a charming" child 
^ -^In her romancing' in the woodland wild, 

And cherished as a dollhonse ornament— 
A forest fall of bears — so cast around 

Mag*nificent aroma, sweete»t scent, 
Delicious perfume and exhaleirtents mild, 

That all inquired where the moss was found-' 

And in her wondrous meaning-, childly wise. 
With clapping- hands, and wide dilating- eyes, 

The little maiden answered: "Don't you know? 
This moss so long beneath rose leaves entombed^^ — 

A petal shedding" rose did o'er it g-row 
For years and years where yonder woodland sig-hs— - 

That thus the moss was by the rose perfiimed-'' 



ROSE AND MOSS. Q 

If we more closely nestled to the flowers 

Of thoug-ht shed by the mind in summer hours, 

The sweets of years would so perfume our lives 
That such aroma cast in full completeness 

Would fill earth's chambers, as the bees their hives, 
With honey-words, g-ood deeds our neig-hbors' dowers 

Till all about us moss-like caug"ht the sweetness. 



lO 



METEMPSYCHOSIS. 

XN the beg-itinmg- simple Truth was naked, 

And Charity in gforg-eous mantle clad; 
But when they came their worldy trips to make, it 
Transpired that both g-ave up their ancient fad. 

The wealth of human frailties g-rew so shocking- 

That Charity to cover all her care, 
First cast her cloak, chemise, next g-own and stocking- 

Until the modest creature wandered — bare. 

Now Charity has not a patch of linen 

To cover half the follies of mankind; 
Thus stands exposed the amplitude of sin in 

Our fellow mortals few of whom are blind. 



MKTEMPSYCHOSlS. II 

Reg-arding- Truth? Well, she in dishabille 
Was undisting-uished from our robeless ilk; 

To mark a contrast Truth put on a frill, 

A smock, a robe, and blossomed forth in silk. 

Richly elaborate her g-audy train 

Sweeps over everything- in loud attire; 

Truth's proper person still without a stain, 
Her g-arments g-et bedabbled in the mire. 

In proud habiliments the lady walks 

On earth disguised, tho' Truth remains true; so 

Invention merely human, writes and talks 
In ornate lang-uag-e of her g-ay trousseau. 

To recognize her now we certain laws lack 
In cyphering her orbit 'neath the skies: 

As well seek vanished needle in a strawstack 
As make a quest of verity's disguise. 



1,2 MKIEM PSYCHOS IS. 

Not that Truth vanished from the earth, now note nie, 
Nor that sweet Charity in hiding- lurks; 

You may in your report, however, quote me 
As dubbing- them a brace of flirting- shirks. 

There is a dearth of truth and charity; 

Comparison is coy to name the less — 
Paul nominated one when vied some three, 

Truth absent, g-reatest; g-reatef now is Dress. 

Involved in quandary are we for style 
And errors unredressed, as each exposes 

Her pristine character reversed; the while 
Men marvel at the strangle metempsychosis. 



13 



SONNET. 

TTERE is a rosebush, called the creeping- rose, 

To plant upon my dead boy's g-rave, that, by 
And by, when Time permits myself to lie 
Beside him in the thraldom of repose, 
(Not sleeping-, I mean dead) it may disclose 
Rare bloom in friendly season. It will pry 
Aside the weeds and g-rass to creep where I 
Shall be — thus emulate my babe — and pose 
Its rose-lips in an open laug^h above 

My heart of dust; and when the blossoms fall 
In their teleg-raphy of noiseless love. 
Some fond communication from my Paul 
May thrill electric vines; or, failing-, prove 
That we are nothing-, and Death all in all. 



14 



BATTLE FLAGS. 

^ ^ 1 ^WAS Sumner said: "Our battle flags will wave 

Unkindly inettiories of a broken dream." 
Ay, broken by the crimson flowered g-rave 
Dug in the tearful haste of brothers brave 
Among the willows where in sadness lave 

The murmuring waters of each southern stream. 

Forget those battle flags?. ^ How hardj^' twill be! 

Their dauntless streaming led us up the height 
Of burning hope and mountain, when the glee 
Of laughing cannons mocked us, and the sea 
Of ^flames ;had swept^to dim eternity 

Our mangled messmates fallen in the fight. 



BATTI.K FI.AGS. 15 

Let Southern chivalry give back the dead 
Who purchased with their blood the flags and field — 

Return the flags because, forsooth, 'tis' said D 

The union in a stronger Union wed 

Is now perpetual? because we dread 

To stir disdain in bossoms forced to yield? 

The heroes of Truth's conquests never die: 
So, if you will, these battle flags forget. 

I<et them return where southern breezes sigh, 

The home of valor, "seat'of [^chivalry; 

Forego the victor's boast, pass past things by — 
Thus start a nation' s]^code of etiquette. 



i6 



TWO MOTTOES. 

LIFE: Heart to heart. 
DEA TH: Dust to dust, 

"D Y theory and by proof it hath been shown 
There is, or is not, a hereafter. Rig-ht! 
Peace to the dead. I live and reckon none 
Know how to cherish life's delig-ht 

As those who live for them 
Who live; the rest is dim 
To reason's searching- lig-ht. 

"If there is weig-ht in an eternity, 

lyet the grave listen and be graver still," 
The Avon stoic wrote. Not so; we die, 

And dust to dust; then heart to heart until. 

"Eat, drink, be merry," taught the sage, 
Corroborating Youth and Age 
Cry, marry and amen! we will. 



TWO MOTTOKS. 1 7 

Let the grave silence us with dust to dust, 
But bide the silence with a lover's part — 
True, fervid and devoted; not in lust 

Whose g-audy wing- invites the venomed dart, 
lyove; 'tis the season, 'tis the bloom; 
To-morrow dust falls, falls the doom; 
To-day let heart beat nearer heart. 



i8 



THE LOST PRAYER. 

'W THI^N from our portal g-oes the well-tried friend 

Whose way lies to the world of weal or woe. 
Not knowing-, we exclaim adieu! and send 

The parting- kiss by waving- hand, and lo! 
The prayer: Good by unto the end. 

Good by? A benediction lost forever ' 
To random tong-ues; a hurried, panting prayer 

Condensed by quicker heartbeats which thus sever 
On lips unlettered: God be with you where 

You go, and God be with you ever. 



THE LOST prayi:r. 19 

At parting-, then, may God be with you, dear; 

And when the intervening- distance more 
Than sad words measure, you, perchance, get ear 

Of God be wi' you, — till the voice dies low'r,— 
God b' y' — good by epitomized you hear. 

Good by! adieu! all one, we fondly try 

To utter in our sorrows, in our tears; 
Friends come, friends go; unceasing shadows ply 

Their crafts about us in the flood of years, 
Yet, in the surge or calm beyond — Good by! 



2a 



CASSANDRA. 

^ I "^HERli to and fro upon the Trogan walls, 

Ivike weird moon spectre of sublime distress, 

The raving- daughter of old Priam calls, 

Hands wring-ing, teared amain, and every tress 
Of her gnarled hair alive with writhing, less 

Than hissing serpents being only hair, 
Bewailing Ilium; the sorceress 

Unheeded as a maddened damsel fair. 

Her war-like brother Hector warning in despair. 



CASSANDRA. 21 



"'Foredoomed, foredoomed!" were her prophetic words 
To draw the dauntless soldier from the field; 

Her cry of evil omen sable birds 

Of carrion in g-loating- echoes pealed, 

But fell like Greek blows on his smitten shield 

Beneath the force of warning-; nay, they fed 
His valor to the full so he would yield 

Alone to death — and death attending- shed 

His canopy of darkness over Hector dead. 



Wail, Hecuba; Andromache, bemoan 

Fell ruin come apace; and over all 
The fate of son and husband overthrown. 

The doom of Troy's proud city soon to fall. 

Cassandra's warning- oft' equivocal 
Established thus by slig-hting- her appeals 

Finds Hector's corse around the outer wall 
Drag-g-ed shamefully, no ig-nominy feels 
Bound to Achilles' ruthless chariot wheels. 



22 CASSANDRA. 

O, fatal g-ift of prophesy, to cast 

Before its full probation dire event 
That none attends until the hour is past 

When divination proves inconsequent! 

Distraug-ht Cassandra subtle in portent 
By g-ods ordained, was furthermore received 

As fool-capped prophetess by scoffers bent 
On ridicule; they heard but not believed. 
And as she raved the more the more themselves 
deceived. 

Upon the battlements of ag-es stands 

The brain-sick g-irl of bodements making- moan; 
Words shrill with aug"ury, hair- tearing- hands, 
Kxcept when one above the pale brow thrown 
Kncornices the eyes, while things unknown 
At longest range are scanned. Anon her sight 
Discerns life's fray — wounds, blood; she hears the 

groan 
Of dying Nature! — Troy, Greece, Rome too slight 
For death to catalogue in universal night. 



23 

EXPERIMENTS. 

Tlir OLD two soft hands in thine: 

The heart's electric batteries go ting-ling 
The fingertips with currents tine, 

Enthralling as rich spells of wine, 
And subtle threads of love will twine 
Two souls together mingling. 

Two lips join to thine own, 

Her lips whose hands thus in experiment 
Formed loving circuit: First, a moan 
X3r sigh, then panting — not alone 
The secret heart its love has shown 
In sadness or in merriment. 

All signs are tattlers on 

The lover's heart that, seemingly full well, ails; 
A thousand mediums will run 

With message quickly to the one 
Fair creature under heaven's sun — 
For love all things are tell-tales. 



24 



TOUTE A TOI. 

TTE died in Idaho. The clustered hair^ 
Untang"led as in classical despair, 

Twined round his pallid face full tenderly: 
A miner welded in heart-passioned fire 
Whose eag-er hope revealed was proud desire 
To dig" to hardpan, from which climb the hig^her 

On g'olden ladder rarer man to be. 

But he lay dead, this hero of my theme. 
Pale as the g"lory of a faded dream; 

His past was mystery, at best forlorn. 
The frag-ments of a rose was all that he 
Had on his person of biography, 
'Neath which she wrote: "Toute a toi. Marie"- 

And under, he: "All withered — but the thorn." 



TOUTK A TOI. 25 

Death is the moralist who stood above 
These broken elements of dream and love. 

Of hope, despair, and death let fly his dart. 
Chasing- the prismy threads of rainbow g"old 
This lover of unknown Marie had rolled 
Away the secret mountain to unfold 

A wealth of ang-uish pressing- on his heart. 

O what a scrap of history is here 
Of him, of her, of tales that murmur near 
The broken heart! All withered, all deceits; — 
The rosy smiles, the pollened words and all 
Those pledg-ing- petals that sweet hours recall — 
All withered but the thorn, the prick, the ga.ll, 
The cvnic monument o'er bitter-sweets. 



26 



A SMILING JUDGE. 

*' \ MAN may smile and smile and be 
-^--^ A villain," Hamlet said, but fudg-e! 
A man may smile and smile, you see 
Beyond a doubt — and be a judg-e. 

If ear to ear were full a mile, 
His beard an intervening- forest, 

A thousand trips the judg^e's smile 

Would make between, nor ling-er for rest. 

The robe of Justice was believed 
To clothe solemnity; and while her 

Vibrating- steelyards knaves relieved, 
The judg-e should not become a smiler. 



A SMILING JUDGE. 27 

So, please the court, we here demur, or 

Reserve exceptions to your smiles; 
Appealing- from the same as error 

Unwarranted by Coke or Hiles. 

Ivike sapient Ulpian be demure 

"Whose litig-ant all dupes surpasses; 

Be doubtful, cautious, g-rave as your 
Environment of solemn asses. 



28 



TO FATHER. 

/^~^OMKS May 'tis four and eig-hty years 

The truant world has wandered 
Among- the outer circling spheres 
Since first you, father, pondered 
O'er life's realities; 
And nearly forty-three of these 

Since I amazed first sat 
Upon your proudly dancing- knees 
Both, doubtless, wondering- at 
Life's possibilities. 



TO FATHER. 29 

Dare we g"0 jaunting- back tog^ether 

Without apparent fear 
Throug-h vanished calm and stormy weather 

Kvading sig-h or tear 
In memories? 
How much of g-rief was sunflushed dew I 

The same eventful story 
Upon the lang-uid tong-ue; and, too, 

The same abundant g-lory 
Our hearts to please. 

Your eyes turn toward the western sun 

Expecting- it to set. 
Life's varied mission nearly done — 

Not yet — g-aze here, not yet! 
Ivct us remember. 
There is some urg-ent need of staying- 

Tog-ether long-er, thoug-h 
My crescent life is in the Maying- 

And yours about the snow 
Of chill December. 



30 TO FATHER. 

Save you alone I never owned 

One whom I dared call friend; 
For such a lack have you atoned, 
Mine fully to the end; 

So ends the grieving-. 
How kind th2 world has been, withal, in 

So many things to both! 
Such g-ood and ill have us befallen — 
I am (are you not?) loth 
To g"ive up living. 

Good turns and bad have been bestowed 

Upon me unretarded, 
And neither debt has long been owed, 

The losses disregarded. 

As well the gains. 

Unworthy son am I to be 

Owned by a sire so clever: 
You never had an enemy, 

While friends are bound forever 
In golden chains. 



TO FATHER. 3 1 

An enemy you never had 

Except one pseudo-friend; 
As I remember you were mad 
Predicting- his sad end: 

"G-ollmima dang" you! 
If you will not my words attend — 

(Wait till I cut this switch) 
And your confounded conduct mend, 
The tree is g-rowing- which 

Will sometime hang- you." 

I^et us tog-ether smile away 

Those teapot tempests now, 
Both praying- that I ever may 

Escape the strang-ling- boug-h 
For me by rig-hts. 
The picture's darkest backg-round this 

Which by no hocus pocus 
Will dim the view that brig-hter is, 

I standing- in the focus — 
Turn on red lights! 



32 TO FATHER. 

But, father, dear, too long- the cruise 

To traverse rushing- years, 
Or wake fond memories with reviews 

(Nor would they stifle tears) 
Des'-jned for laughter. 
Most happ3" years reserved in store 

Be 3^ours still to enjoy, ' 
Forgetting not that evermore 

I'll be your old-time boy 

Till both hearts stop and after. 



QIR BUTTE^RFlvY, Your radiant colors flash 

Goldfoiled in thousand hues their shield-like 
guards 
Defying- me to question 3^our trick wards 
Of sunra3' fencing. I will bravely smash 
Your froward person into dubious hash. 
Reserve such fate to arrogance awards. 
Peace is your mission? Sol Exchange regards. 
My choler was too sudden, always ra-sh. 
In peace or war I would a lesson learn: 

Your gaudy tints bespeak the amorous knave, 
Some gay IvOth»rio on passions bent 
Subduing lepidopteral hearts; you yearn 
For sensual plunder? Liasons j^ou have, 

Confess them — GonsI Will ever rogues repent? 



34 



I.INKS TO EI.DER B. ' 

T THINK the World desig-ned as round, 

Is nearly so as orbs are found; 
And that a ninny may propound 

A deal of cavil 
Which Solomon, howe'er profound, 

Could not unravel. 

You teach that hell is hissing- hot, 
A torrid climate heaven has not, 
And purgatory mean, I wot, 

For lying 'twixt them, 
A temperature by sinners sought 

As prelates mixed them. 



lylNKS TO KIvDKR B, 35 

You say that in the future life 

Man will his own from, neighbor's wife 

Not know much better than this strife 

Intensely human, 
Where he may lip, as common fife, 

The varied woman. 

I would be certain; nay, a doubt 
Will life's hereafter sadly rout; 
A playhouse !Sion make without 

Grounds more specific; 
For here the churches fight — and shout 

"I^et 's be pacific," 

Men are as honest as they may: 
lyie, swindle, pilfer, cuckold, slay, 
Seduce, confound, rob, slander, pray, 

Malig-n and bicker; 
If all these roads lead upward, they 
Gain scaffolds quicker. 



36 I.INES TO KI.UEK K, 

The world is g-rowing- better; yet. 

The pauper, tramp and starved are met 
B^^ sleek philanthrophy whose fret 

Is — "Will the press of it 

Catch wind, m}^ name sonorous g-et, 

Or make a mess of it?" 

With earth you are not satisfied, 
Nor earthlj" methods, mixed and pied 
So pilg-rims cannot throug^h them glide 

In even course; 
Were all corrections left 5^0 u, I'd 

Find matters worse. 

With heaven I am not content 
If what the churches say is in 't; 
I^et those who will their sins repent, 

Despite small laughter, 
A chance the gambler would not stint 

To win hereafter. 



TJNKS To EL^iK^R B. ,'^7 

As far as hell goes I admit 
There is excuse for building- it> 
The earth holds many for it lit 

Whose hearts now freeze. 
Their names? if you insist, to-wit: — 

Our enemies. 

Thus, Elder, in these lines make out 
What I believe, or wherein doubt;: 
You will discover me about 

As bad as lawful; 
I'm with you, Elder, if you shout — 

O awful, awful.' 

If you, however, deem my verse 
Deserving- ag-g-rayated curse, 
Hurl your anathema, or worse, 

In words to suit you. 
We must the same course take ahearse 

But there I quit you. 



3S 



CENTENNIAI. HOPKB. 

T HOPE that in the treasury of Time 

A g-olden fortune coined by Truth awaits 
The full maturity and goodly prime 
Of this young- family of States 
So they may richly ag-e, 
Grow wise and sag'e* 

I hope that thoug-h all things must die in years, 

This childhood of our States is aug"ury 
Of coming greatness free of guilt and tears; 
That growth to fullest worth Will see 
This maiden truth increase^ 
In States is peace. 



CKNTENNIAlv HOPES. 39 

I hope these States will never more ag-airi 

Ivike crocodiles make meals of dearest blood 
On their own children; naug-ht to wash the stain, 
Not g-rief with rivers at the flood — 
Deeds may, good deeds to those 
Who live dead foes. 

I hope the chime of freedom from the tower 

Of Philadelphia will harmony 
To strug-g-ling- nations ring-, no slaves, no power; 
For thoug-htful people must be free; 
No dispensation gave 
Heaven to enslave. 

Four ceiituries has Switzerland progressed; 

Her mythic Tell roams Alpine peaks 
Unchained as mountain winds; she stands the test. 
And yet, our boastful Union speaks 
As if, though but beg-un, 
The race were run. 



40 CKNTKNNIAIv HOPKv'>. 

States g-row with men, men grow with new ideas 

And these are sane and insane in us all; 
May anarchy's allies^, craze-varied, be as 
Confined as madmen in the wall 
Of speechles-s, coward skulls 
A-way from fools. 

I hope disputes will never weapon draw, 

For one poor life outweig^hs the honor g-ained- 
At pride's most senseless war: abide the law 
In which, not blood, be heroes trained: 
Then will these States long: be: 
Completely frecv 

4 July 1876. 



4t 



^SOP^S HARfi. 

A TIMID hare (and why creation took 

Such care to implicate so coy a creature 
With such a startling-, nervous heart 's a feature 
Of hig-her plans unsolved) ran by a brook. 

Again this hare (because alorlg' its tr'ack 

The frogs leaped from their grassy qua'ters 
tJpon the margin ihto glassy waters 

in uttef, abject fear) ran sriorting backs 

Thus back arid forth (rior rieed one this affair 
Prolong to guess the tinlid creature hovered 
Alorig the barik because fear was discovered 

tn frogs) arid to arid fro r'ari raniparit hare. 



42 ^SOP'S HAR^, 

How much like man! (because 'tis his penchant 
To run a blazef on each timid victim 
Who winces at his booh! it would convict him 

Of cowardice.) How very much like man! 



Some men are hares (w'hen they amid the 

Flee hounds in fear; or, bravely on the border 
Of brooks flush startled frog-s in wild disorder 

And plung^ing- fear.) Some men, alas! are frog's. 

The hare was all surprise— (be not o'erpowered 
By fear before a stand is made, because 
A valiant blow may knock out big- applause 

Or flush the frog") to find a g-reater coward, 



43 
SWKET UFE. 



XT^OU SAW that dang-ling- dead leaf dive 

Beneath the grass, the sparrow fall 
To swell the fig-ures? Once alive, 
Why dive or fall at all? 



You saw, wind chased, yon blossom leap 
Into the brook, which, running- on, 

Enlarg-es ocean ever neap — 
No need to look — 'tis gone! 

O weary counting- 1 g'uess the Sum 

Of sparrows fall'n, and hopes as welll 

Arithmetic is g-rossly dumb, 
No finite fig-ures tell. 

O transient, brooding-, dreaming- man! 

Death is the certain thing- he knows- 
Ivife is the puzzle, sweeter than 

Rich frag-rarice of the rosie, 



44 



BUB 'ROBA 

fP CRESSID will toy with a loiig-iiig- to pl&.y 
with lis, 
Pondlitlg- to kiss arid foi' favors disclose 
Her eriamoririg- charms that, itl truth, g'et away 

With US, 
Frownirig, caressing, by yea arid by riay with Us, 
i^et her ruderiess or riuderiess impassioriirig stay 
with us 

tlrider thf^ i'ose. 



SUB ROSA. 45 

Rebuke the uiichivalrous rog-ue who will tell to us 
Honors once plucked from .the darling-s he knows; 
Such a brag-g-art of secrets exposes a hell to us 
Here in a paradise Satan would sell to us, — 
For belike the like liasons frequently fell to us 
Under the rose 

Let triumps no matter what form they may hie 
with us, 
Conquering- passions, companions or foes, 
Be estopped from proclaiming- the prowess to die 

with us 
Coaxing- or hoaxing-, — known others may vie with us. 
Such frivolities should for eternity lie with us 
Under the rose. 



46 



TRAITORS. 

''T^HAT CHKliK whose permeating flush 
Darts lig-hting o'er the pallid face 
Till one may trace 
By dint of that quick blush 
The poorly smothered thought, 

Is traitor. ' 

That tongue whose wily rambling o'er 
The narrow path of truth, trips down 
A checking frown, 
Is, to the ruling power 
Of love, hate, joy or woe 
A traitor. 



TRAITORS. 47 

That eye whose bickering- g-lances stray 
Into the far-off trembling skies 
To catechise, 
Is, hj its timd ray, 

Unto the muffled speech 
A traitor. 

That man who slides within the groove 
Cut by blind moralists of old, 

Whose fell heirs scold 
"When thoug-ht and earth still move, 
Is to God's ordained law, 
A traitor. 



4^^ 



VENUS SANS ADONIS. 

^TTlTH VENUS poets have indulg-ed the fancy 
In liberal moods to coach the sig-hing- race; 
lyicentious amorists they are, all can see, 
Who flirt with sacred, or profane the base, 
Desires of hearts; 
And all the arts 
Of pen or chisel in outlining Venus, 

The peerless beauty of the ages 
Recorded in authentic pages, 
Are but the croppings of the craze within us. 

No matter whom their frenzies may applaud, till 
For utmost love she poses as the model. 



VENUS SANS ADONIS 49 

My chosen Venus burning at my heart 

Of sacred flames of ultra love (because it 
Is secret from the gossip's prying art 
Which makes incarnate skeletons acloset) 
Will be the burden 
Of every word in 
These licensed rhymes that strangly zigzag- turn. 
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty" 
Sang Keats, an urn to view 't; he 
No sweeter ashes from his Grecian urn 
Scattered upon his over-fertiled poesy: 
Why Beauty's goddess left to her repose he? 

Hers is a form subverting ^hoh^ writ 

Whose legend of the story of creation 
Reverts to dust for origin unfit; 

Such form compiled (despite asseveration 
Before the flood) 
Before the blood 
With spirit coursed thro' rivers of her mold. 
Dust had not been, musty 
And classic Venus de 
Medici, seafoam or in marble cold, 

Beside her stands a yellow wreck in view, 'tis 
A mass of maitnad and tiuislv broken beauties. 



50 VKNUS SANS ADONIS. 

Red roses have been ravished for their tropes 

To parallel the lips of painted woman; 
That they will yield to her, I have hig-h hopes, 
A color warmer than was ever human. 
A red red red. 
Twice hued, thrice said 
To equal the vermillion of her lips — 

And after could I speak well, 
Thrice red becomes unequal 
To her lips' Tyrian roug-e — the red sun dips 
In ocean such a carnadine if clouds baptizing- 
Their g-arments can betray a thoug-ht worth prizing-. 

Her eyes! O commonplace of ogling- poets. 

Give way to hers! a blue blue black that g-ives 
The violet hue. — Two blues niake black, for know it's 
A law of rhetoric two neg-atives 
Affirm; so black 
Of blues — alack! 
Blue neither, yet not black her tranceful eyes 
That dream awake, yet waking- 
Seem as if merely taking- 
Farewells of sleep. But let them in surprise 
A query flash, or animated travel in 
Kxcited ways the g-lance becomes a javelin. - 



VENUS SANS ADONIS 5 1 

^he lily-white complexions in the mortar 

Of happy dreams have been compounded oft', 
And alabaster brows and all this sort are 
Supremely cream, superbly white and soft; 
The seashell pining- 
For seas defining- 
A color purer than its lining- hints 

At her full-bleached enamel — 
Tho' this will truly trammel 
The metaphor of pearly-creamy tints 

Of her pink-white complexion — blooded petal 
Of bleaching- rose sug-g-ests it, but not yet all. 

Her bosom is a labyrinth of love 

Beyond the clue revealed by Ariadne; 
Wise Solomon whose hillside sheep once strove 
To bosom woman, harped a song- to sadden; he 
. Orig-inal 
Was, that is all. 
There is no tang-ible equation g-iven 

To fig-ure her attractive piir — 
Warm, full, protruding, round, and, fair 
As winnowed snow, or what some call snow driven, 
Whatever that is, — but I find it stands a 
Necessity to write another stanza 



52 VKNUS SANS ADONIS. 

To shift the flimsy veil of rhyme aside 
The coyest bosom to reveal here free 
Of shielding- drapery before denied 

Its function of concealment. Say that the 
Imprisoned breast 
Is in a chest, — 
A treasure box of wonders, cautioned to 

Keep closed lest som^e Pandora open 
The lids that close my hope in 
('Tis said from hers all other blessings flew 
Tho' by the g-ods bequeathed) for fear 
Of dissipation to thin atmosphere. 

If sounds were mellowed to the charming* lyre 

Manipulated by rare Orpheus, 
With sea-beach chorus and a floral choir 
- All distanced to an echo for the use 
Of ravished ears, 
So one who hears 
Enjoys a sense of perfume and of sound, 
They would securely mirror 
Her voice to nature nearer 
Than sounding- speech in verbal artist found; 

So sweet it is, so charming- in the total 
Of slides, breaks, emphasis — no need to note all. 



VENUS SANS ADONIS. 53 

Now there you have her — pardon, I have, rather, 

With wealth of love more ample than what fell in 
The path of Paris who Troy of his father 
Inflamed with firebrand of epic Helen. 
Her heart I live in 
Responsive g-iven 
In ways beyond the tell-tale pen; so full can 
No worded meter measure 
The ardent love we treasure 
Since Mars took measurment of Mrs. Valcan: 
Unlike the blacksmith's fate with love of Venus, 
No Mars can mar the marvelous love between us. 



54 

HONESTY NON EST. 



"An honest man 's the noblest work of God,'* 
In christian fervor said the poet Pope; 
Bob Ing-ersoll, the atheist, sans hope. 

Seduced the words to make the line a bawd. 

"An honest g-od 's the noblest work of man," 
Inversely runs the orator's late version; 
And while the meaning" suffers mean perversion, 

The line in equal measure poets scan. 

A caviling- wag- who in grim humor revels 
Announces an amendment scarcely honest. 
Whose new construction of the adjunct 's f^on est, 

Or god or man, hence both the work of devils. 



HONESTY NON EST. 55 

Well, who is rig-ht? Man's death, if one believes 
The serpent story, is assigned to Satan; 
And Moses says that God did man create, an 

Ung-rateful creature who strange gods conceives. 

The quest is idle backward though we go: 

The sun-scorned taper of Diogenes 

Whose search-light efforts made frauds ill at ease, 
Could never honest man in Athens show. 

Reverting to the "honest" qualifier: 
As well abide the coming light when we all 
Within the baleful glare of crackling sheol, 

May find an honest being by its fire. 



56 



A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 

T^OR 3^ou, my Nellie, were you older g-rowrl 

To understand the wild words issuing- 
r^rom lines like these, I should the g-ods invoke 
With prayer and worded incense that they would 
On you a fond parental g-ift bestow. 
Upon my knee you asked some Yuletide toy 
As Christmas present. Wrong* the words. You should 
Say, rather, "Christmas box" — and, in a week, 
"A New Year's g^ift, from you." These were the terms 
Of rarer learning- in the .olden days 
When spells were wroug^ht in Latin, fairies called 



A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 57 

In classic incantation, devils banned 

And banished bj- learned formulas of speech. 

You shall be happy with a Christmas box: 

Its value measure not with sting-y rules 

Of earth whose survey in full amplitude 

Of reach our kindred measures out of hom^s — - 

Surveying- pallid poverty untouched 

While prodig-al with diamonds, g-auze and paint 

Wealth stares meek Charity out of the way. 

What will it be the promised Christmas box? 

Dear daug-hter, were papa's delayed ship fraug-ht 

With g-olden dreams more opulent than tales 

Embellished with Arabian device 

When brains and lamps were scraped for palaces 

Or g-imcrack fortunes, he should name a g-ift 

To beg-g-ar princesses and drive ag-ain 

The lavish Arab to his splendid dreams. 

Now shall I tell you of Pandora's box? 

Pandora was the maiden first on earth, 

She was of g-ods the all-endowed; they g^ave 

Her every blessing- benefitting- man. 



58 A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 

Within a box were closed the futite gifts; 

While thus enclosed secure was happiness 

To humankind. How deep the symbol here! 

Our chiefest happiness is still concealed — 

Our greatest good unknown. This is the Greek 

Conception of the origin of ill. — ■ 

The Hebrew fable with its woman too 

At apples straining, spying mysteries, 

You may hereafter learn and how Kve's fruit 

"Brought death into the world and all our woe. 

The dear Pandora curious to know 

The form of human happiness concealed 

Within the box, against the edict giv'n, 

Despite ukase of mighty Czars of high 

Olytnpus, peeped into the box, alas! 

And, though the lid was parted from the trunk 

Not wider than your two sweet lips now part, 

Out flew to heaven human happiness, 

Out flew each gift of special providence, 

!^ach heavenly token for earth's splendor given 

By good designing gods who minister 



A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 59 

To Jove since then nor after spared a boon 
To curious mankind. Thus dowered she 
Essayed a peep, nay, half a peep at g-ifts 
Whose wing's fanned air about Elysium 
Before imprisonment; Pandora ope'd 
The lid and out flew winged Charity, 
Contentment, Wisdom, Friendship, Justice, Eove, 
Faith, Beauty, Purity, Joy, Ivoyalty, 
Benevolence, Truth, Virtue, Wit and all — 
Ay, every wing was whipping air to gain 
The heavens never to return. The girl 
Enthralled by wonderment inactive stood. 
And spellbound by the blessings fled — the guests 
Whose parting- was unspeeded by their host. 
Aroused at leng-th rushed blindly to the box, 
In panting- haste closed down the luckless lid, 
And, fortunately too, closed Hope within, 
Hope slowest gift to beat its rainbow wing-s, 
Hope longest here to tarry, Hope the last 
Our dreams to quit, our bosoms to forsake, 
For Hope was in the bottom of the box. 



6o A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 

Pine not for vanished joys: the present bliss, 

The hope retained, the pleasure held, the cheer 

We now enjoy would suffer in exchange. 

When years wing back to you their varied gifts 

Of doubtful pleasures with their pains unseen, 

Yon will have learned what poets say of Hope: 

With gewgaw metaphors they dress her up, 

Trope spangle her from ankle unto neck, 

And robe her in hyperbole. Withal, 

Her fascinating form unmillinered 

By poesy to us comes best in rags. 

Hope radiant with colors bends her bow 

To arch the clouded future. Half my life 

Is gone were Hope to write the figures, yet 

Hope is enchantress gilding time to come 

With hues entrancing that if I were you — - 

Or once again redated at your age, 

A child of three, to tread the zigzag path 

Of life once more — I should abandon Hope. 

Who to the cradle would retrace his steps 

By guiding Memory when Hope points on. 



A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 6 1 

The pilgrim well assured there lies the grave 

To-morrow or to-morrow or to-morrow? 

Had not Pandora saved for us this Hope 

Death would be the religion of the world 

And Suicide its priestess. But no more 

Of matter not pertaining to my gift. 

Suppose to me the power were assigned 

Of all the troops of vanished gifts to call 

One back for you, which blessing would it be? 

Who will approve my choice? Not "Wisdom say 

Benevolence is chosen, neither Wit 

Nor Ivove if favor is allied to Truth, 

Nor Virtue passing Virtue by; each gift 

Rejected in the choice will jealous pout 

And all arrayed for peevish commentary 

Be critical as if a human heart 

Supplied keen tongues with envy. Make a choice 

Of Beauty e'en would I, for Beauty is 

The sovereign ruler of the pulsing world; 

The gift were Beauty could my choice prevail. 

And what is Beautv? Abstract definition 



62 A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 

Impoverishes the lexicon for words 

To mean as much as Beauty's fing-er means. 

A slig-hted youth revolving- in his brain 

Her outlines, vanishing- in uttered breath 

When speech defined, g-ave her this character: 

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty; that is all 

Ye know on earth and all ye need to know." 

Mere object lessons worldly heroes are 

In vassalag-e of Beauty. They to touch 

Her garment's hem have pawned imperial sway, 

And tumbled king-doms to be Beauty's slave; 

For her a thousand Antonies have lost 

Their thousand empires; and on her behalf 

The sword carved history on marble piles, 

The lyre was strung- to tremble softer notes. 

The pen in inspiration was immersed, 

And for her smile hypnotic love was doomed. 

A dowery of beauty would enslave 

All hearts from peasant up to courtly king-, 

She is imperious, tyrannical. 

The arrant wit, the social gay, the sage 



A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 63 

Of cooler temper will eng-ag-e their lives 

In kindly act or homag-e meekly shown. 

With beauty's g-ift you at your feet may look 

On passionate and favor-craving- love; 

On wisdom clamoring- for bonds of chains; 

On wealth expostulating- to be cast 

With lavish hand where pleasure dare invite; 

On statesmen subtle in deep policies 

To win your approbation; on divines 

Imploring from the dust ag-ain to, be 

Created in some form of worshipers; 

On artists, scholars, warriors at your feet 

impleading- recog-nition of their worth, 

Acceptance of their tribute to your shrine. 

This christmastide your g-ift from one whose love 

Of you must hold unrivaled, would be such 

A beauty shed upon you as must needs 

Inspire the universe for bolder scheme 

Of fresh invention, that the rose be dyed 

Anew, the lily painted, and a spray 

Of perfume cast upon the violet 



64 A CHRISTMAS GIFT. 

To intimate how much these beauties lack 
For faint comparison. 

Your box would hold 
The gift of Beauty flown were I empowered 
To call the prisoner back; I happj^ too, 
So you were fairer than this winter moon 
Pacing- the promenade of ultra blue 
Among her twinkling votaries of stars. 

■;<- * * * * -sf- * 

O Time, among your varied gifts to her, 

Be liberal with sweets, be liberal 

With thy abundant store of happy toys — 

For easily are human beings pleased; 

And if my child be asked to fathom grief. 

To pulse the blood of anguish — rather let 

The father swing her now, so pure, so chaste, 

Into thy phantom arms in dim abyss 

That he may contemplate her little life 

There struggle to the doubtful dream of wings. 



65 



lyyARCISSUS flees his Kcho, thereby dies 
Her love and beatity to ethereal sound; 
So doomed by Juno when her lord was found , 
Employing this deceiver with her trickeries. 
Till spoken to fond Echo ne'er rejalies 
But ling-ers tnute, in silence firnilj^ bound: 
How doomed like woman's love I Till men pro- 
pound 
The sighing- query she no echo sighs; 
If boisterous, answered boisterously; or low, 
Replying low; that harsh, then harsh is this; 
What mood Narcissus in strange tones employ's 
His shadowed Echo's full responses show; 
Ivove, equal love; hate, hate, and kiss for kiss; 
Yet, men their echoes spurn, themselves the 
cause! 



66 



M. KSTEIvLH G. 

I^XTHAT love has broug-ht you I may never know, 

Nor to your lips whose lips must ling-er long- — 
lyips that were mine and dearly long ag^o 

By their confession kisses warm among-. 
If I could pray the orison would show 

My deep contrition: I was in the wrong-; 
And pray your heart in love has won the ease 
That mine accomplishes it* miseries. 

And, Stella, somewhere sometime you may read 

This laggfard exposition of a heart 
Whose love has gone astray: my eyes had need 

Of your interpretation of a part 
Of one small word — what trifles trifles feed! 

One extra flourish in the penman's art 
Made me discern the jealous word, another, 
When YOU had written tenderly of "mother." 



M. KSTKI.I.E G. 67 

"The setting- of a great hope" (with the ring- 
Returned, these quoted words alone returned) 

"Is like the setting- of the sun," now bring- 
Reg-ret, remorse by hasty conduct earned. 

Be yours the sweets of love, mine all the sting-; 
Yours peace, mine pain; j^ours happiness, mine 
learn'd 

In woe profound be made to realize 

That love so loth to blunder never dies. 



68 



ON A PAINTING. 

IVTOTE^ j^onder balcony by love entailed 

Where Romeo departs from Juliet, 
Her arms enchaining, pursed lips having- failed 

To more than whisper low: "O go not yet, 
It is not 3'et near day!" The moon impaled 

Upon the ivied tower deigns to set 
Lfike Romeo but lingers. I am sorry very 
The lark and not the nightingale sang tirra-lirra. 

There 3'ou behold two rival geniuses 
In their endeavor to accomplish art, 

The poet and the painter; nothing less 
Than marvelous both empires over heart 

Controlled by supplemental memories. 

Constrained are all t' espouse the poet's part, 

Transcendent in domain, for most would fail 

These colored spells to feel were there no tragic tale 



ON A PAINTING. 69 

Bee hov/ the painted wind toys with the stairs 
Of silken ropes down which the poet takes 

The fervid Romeo to fortune's snares: 

A nig-htcap frilled is all the painter makes 

To prophesy the nurse's puffing cares; 

You know she calls — hist! now the door she shakes: 

The Copulets are up, the russet morn 

Is robed, the nig-hting-ale forsakes the thorn! 

This miracle of love the painter's brush 
Has fastened there in spellbound witchery, 

When death, destruction authorize a rush. 
Go, Romeo, in silence; drown the sig-h 

Your kisses echo. — Juliet, girl, hush! 

L/Ct waving hand announce the sad goodby. 

My oh! what raptures do these artists throw 

About poor Juliet and her Romeo! 



70 

GUINKVKRK'S LAMENT. 



O, 



WKARY as the pale tiiorn-star 
That wanders from the threshold of the 
tiig-ht, 
I'm ling-ering afar" 
Where heartmates corrie not nor 
The trusted lips that are 
T'he lover's fond delig-ht! 
How weary, weary., weary! 

To live, or, die and rest, 

which were best! 

More maudlin than the sea-made moart 
iPhat pines for Timon by the Attic wave 
Is life's abandoned tone; 

1 in the world alone 
Bnlist no friend, have none 

To cherish me or save! 
Too weary, weary, weary! 

If living- be the best 
Where, where is rest? 



GUINEVERE S EAMENT. 



How wear3/ are the hours, ah me I 
Yet have I trusted — patientlj' I'll trust 
The lover\s coming-, he 
A wooer still must be — ■- ■ 
I yielding- too, till we 
Lfie dead both in the dust: 
Still weary, wear}^ weary! 

If dying- were the best 
Death g-ives not rest. 



O mocking- man, O scoffing dame! 
Claim all the virtue that the saints have not; 
Your hearts are passing- tame 
Not stirring- at the name — 
Love's g"lory and love's shame — 
Of Lancelot, my Lancelot. 
I^m weary, weary, wearj^ 

Of love denied its rest 
Upon this lover's breast. 



72 GUINKVERK S IvAMENT. 



The shamed moon hides behind the sea, 
And guilty stars in depths of azure languish 
As shunning weary me 
Whose heart was never free 
Of love or misery, 
Of pain or cruel anguish; 
Still jealous and aweary— 

Dost think Klaine hath sought 
Again my lyancelot? 



That smile, that cunning, knowing smile 
Betrays his treachery. — I'll burst these Walls 
Of masonry and while 
Their beads nuns tremble I'll 
Tear-drown this granite pile 
Till it a ruin falls. 
Prayer-wearj^ and heart-weary 

Confined king-doomed I'll not 
Abide from I^ancelot! 



CxU INK VERB S tAMENT. 73 



Ho, there, unbar! — No answer bring" 
My panic words. — Unbar! what, ho! without! 
Who comes? not Arthur, King-? 
Pass on, pass up; nay, wing 
Your higher way, nor cling- 
To subtle, earthly doubt — 
I'm guilty and aweary 

Of king-love — in love's tilt he 
Won Guinevere, the guilty. 



Resounding walls, not Arthur, hear 
My mad confession. lyct them crack for sham^ 
Or shrive me for the sphere 
Of woe, or penance drear 
Impose on Guinevere 
To clear her slandered nam^e 
Who is aweary, weary 

Of earth, air, night, nun, riov'ice 
Not being where her love is. 



74 GUINKVERE vS tAMENT. 

Coy moon, flirt with the sea; 
And, quizzing stars, abide the coming- light 
When fuller, ampler equity 
Adjusts the passions we 
Endure with frailty: 
Love's errors are love's right; 
And I am weary, weary 

For earth the heart to take 
It only made to break. 

Comes harp, We two may pine alotie^ 
Nay, softer, softer — trillaby, how sad! 

Trill, thrill, O dead the tone, 

"Moan, moan," it murmurs, "moan' 

Ha! that a lover's groan 

Is to my bosom known, 
And my brain all but mad, 
So weary, weary, weary: 

To love in life's unrest 

May be the best, — 

It is the best. 



75 



STAR OF THH EAST. 

OTARS of the Nig-ht, give answer! You 

Have lost the pagan sister of the Seven, 
One Pleiad gone beyond the view, 

Or buried in the stellar dust of heaven 
Ke'er to return, 
Whence pagans mourn, 
But answer, wheil your flame is low 
Will new light from the ashes glow? 

Star of our faith, of Bethlehem, 

Of Christ, the jewel of the eastern hlvie, 
Bright for a night but after dim 
In oriental waste to mortal view, 
What is yottr sky 
But immortality; 
Your nlenl'ry but the light set iil 
Hope's window for the feet of sin? 



76 STAR 01^ THE KAST. 

Two stars are gone; yet, in the g-low 

Of sinking-, sunset years, Faith sits believing, 
Ay, knowing- — Faith presumes to know — 
That Christ's eternal star still undeceiving* 
Will shine ag-ain, 
/ Forever reig-n 

For wisemen. Fool, O fool-shut eyes! 
"Wayfarers seeing- will be wise. 

Star of the East, shine on forever; 

Tho' empires westward move and build below 
The pillars of Atlantis, never 
Beyone the lig-ht of thee they g-o 
To joy, despond 
Never beyond. 
Thy occult beams the mind will light 
When death adjusts the shades of nig-ht. 



77 
DYEING THE ROSE. 

A SCAI^APUS who charg-ed queen Proserpine 

With eating- seeds of the pomegranate, was, 
Tho' true the alleg^ation 'g-ainst hell's queen, 
Turned to an owl for tattling- 'g-ainst the laws. 

Nor yet has he forgotten this fell trait, 

This meddling owl and mocker of the moon; 

He ruffed his tufts this night, I must relate, 
Silence or sound to hoot, this nig-ht in June. 

The nighting-ale on rosy favorites 

'Gan chanting- forth this amatory lay 

Just as the moon relit her silver lights 
Behind the argent shadows of the day: 

"Sweet Philomel, awake 

And list to me; 
A carol thro' the vale 
To cheer the moonbeams pale 

May rouse the spellbound brake 
To hear my praise of thee. 



78 DYEING THE ROSE 

"My love earth must not hear, 
My tears none view; 

Philomel, my Philomel, 

lyist to the throbbing- tale I tell. 
Forever trust me, dear, 

1 g-ive my heart" — "To hoo?" 

This inquiry the wan owl thundered out 
In accents void of music; and the vale 

Reverberated it, called echoes shout 

The accents harsh to silence down the dale. 

And silence which is sexton of all sound 

Returned from its g-rim mission where it laid 

The owl's To-hoo to rest beneath the ground; 
Thus, peace assured, the nig-hting-ale essayed:- 

"O Philomela, though 

.The mocker knew 
To whom my heart I gave. 
For whom I pine or rave, 

I'd have the blind world know 



DYKING THE ROSE. 79 

I g-ave my heart" — "To hool 
False knave, to hoo?" 

The imgrammatic owl by g-ods decreed 

A speechifier most inopportune, 
Alarmed the songster who showed Pan the reed, 

That down the songster fell in pallid swoon. 

But sound less arg-ument or log-ic wise, 

Was evermore perplexing". Sag^es spent 
Much breath in sound, so did this bird in sig-hs 
Proclaiming- his last will and testament: 
"I dye this rosebud red. 

My love, for thee; 
Its thorn let out life's flood 
And forth drips pulsing- blood 

To dye the pale rose red 
For love, my love for thee." 
His Philomela listening- sad beside 

In unschooled treble blubbered from her bower 
Of roses this sad requiem — she tried 

To sing in tears, not angels have the power: 



8o DYEING THE ROSE 

O bitter, woeful sig-ht 

For love to see! 
Thro' all the weary years 
Shall fall my widowed tears 

Till they the rose wash white 
For thee, my love" — "Te hee!" 

The owl grew merry quite, 
"Te hee, fond fool, tee hee!" 

White rose of truth, and love's red rose still bloom 
Despite the owl-cried slander all in vain; 

lyove dyed the one, and Truth's sweethearted boon 
Of tears was shed to wash it white agfain.- 

Thus in the Persian vale lyove testified 
In dumb sig^nificants what after were 

For hatred in the Temple Garden vied — 
The rose of York, the rose of I^ancaster. 



8i 



IVTOT many years ag"o these swamps betrayed 
Unwary travelers by their phantom light, 
The ig-nis fatuus weak hearts to fright, 
When pioneers within its precincts strayed. 
Here in substantial edifice arrayed 
This marvel to the all bewildered sight, 
The gourd developed in a fairy night, 
Consummate genius for new commerce made. 
Hesperian dreams in furnace-flames were welded 
To beat the orient; the magic wands 
Swayed by idyllic artifice are felled, it 

The nonpareil White City, greater stands. 
O'er all the world in reverential awe go, 
Then ponder on its miniature, Chicago. 



•Sz 



JUNE. 

^TOTJ ma3% perhaps, some slig^ht exception take — 

Plead noisy fowl, or ag-ue's burning- suns, 
To long- days trivial objection make 

Protesting- to the lang-uor which is June's. 



Come all the months of nature's g-alaxy 
For crown of honor June, dispel all fear, 

In royal coronation will out-vie, 

Imperial mistress of the crescent year. 

Come all June days in sunlit robes of state, 
My courtesy the reg-al Twenty-second 

Disting-uishes above its every mate, 

Because in it my natal hour is reckoned. 



JUNK. . 83 

It is a day replete with shining hours, 

To darkness leaving- little sway for crime; 

A month of dreams and calm, of love and flowers, 
The heir apparent of the Summer time. 

L<et biased eye in frenzy elsewhere g-aze 

At seeding- months or fruitful, blizzard free^ 

At placid May, October's mellow haze; 
My natal month is g"Ood enough for ine. 



H 



THE POESY OF A RING. 

/^ IvlTTIvE Rose, my latest cheer, 

My last — plead accidents in bar, 
To-day your are of ag-e — a year, 
This tiny ring vouchsafe to wear. 

Your hand; no, no — the left, this fing-er 
Whose nerve describes the shortest line 

From fing-ertip to heart where ling-er 
In embryo love-buds of mine. 



THtS POESV OI^ A RING. 8$ 

-And how the parent seeds transplants 

In such a tender soil you know 
-As w^ell as I, but no one w^ants 

To question what the winds may soW" 

"The harvest with the whirlwind comes 

To g-aruer all irt. after years 
When hearts are ruined, wrecked the homes 

In full propinquity of tears. 

There^ look! "^ou smile, my tender otie, 
And laug-h* so, that pfesag-es g-ood: 

You recOg-iiize what you have oil, 
Its mystic, meaning- understood. 

A year of ag'e and compreheiid 

This ring- with endless circle bound? 

X^ike fabled love without an end; 
Like constancy in fancy found? 



S6 TKK POKSY OF A RING, 



This circlet is, or Kepler's count errs, 
Composed of infinite straight lines, 

Three points of which no line encounters. 
And thus to turning- ay inclines 

In protests of your fervid heart 

With ring- lore do not love annoint^ 

Lest it inconstant prove the art 
Of varying- from point to point* 

Ivaug-h and clap hands: Beanporridg-e hot? 

N'o? lost in admirable joy, 
Our merry g-ame abandoned? what! 

You are enchanted by the toy? 

Wee tendril, twining- Rose of mine, 
On earth be jeweled first by me 

May this our kindred hearts combine 
From Adam to eternity! 



THE ^OESV OF A RING. 



A fairy fing-er bound in g-old,— 

This cap O is one-half the iiie-asure, 

May million trillions manifold 

Sweet Roses for the world to treasure^ 

As I flow love you loYe youf own, 
The parents past, the offspring- new; 

What though the cradle be a moan 
This heart would break for loss of you^ 

And sometime when the lover lips 

This pretty hand for Hymen's potion, 

His fondest vows may mine eclipse 
But not exceed my heart's devotion. 

So, little one, the ring admire, 

And laug-hing- flash it full to view: 

To all the questions of your sire 

He knows the answer is, "Ah! g-oo!" 



§8 



A F^E:ttOW TRAVHI.ER. 

JUST a moment on the bridg-e: 
'Tis my resting- place the dearest,- 
Naug-ht to taunt save an odd midg-ej 

Here the village is the clearest 
Over yonder drooping- ridge, 
And the queerest. 

Where the brooklet througli the weeds 
'Tween to files of hills comes humming^ 

Pipe the birds mid winded reeds, 
liver and forever trummingi 

Much like good times or good deeds, — ■ 
Evver cotning. 



A FEttOW TRAVEtKR 89 

Close's mill continues drinkingf 

This wild brooklet down below; 
Of the whirling- mill not thinking" 

Rushing- bubbles onward g-o 
Dashing-, racing-, splashing-, blinking' 
To and fro. 

Or, the rarest fairy taleiS 

Uttered in the choicest diction 
By the brooklet to the g-ales 

You remember, and Old Nick's son 
Who transformed the blabbing- quail's 
"More wheat" fiction? 

Navy Close cried out, "more Wheat !'^ 

All the customers "more flour!" 
While the turbine thought it meet 

To demand more water power: 
To a quail was turned the cheat, 
Siilgs each hour- 



go A FKttOW TRAVEXKR 

Way beyond this ancient mill — 

Sight across these water mallows^ 

Sleeps the village cold and still; 
'Tis a bourn each being hallows 

Heedless as the brook until 
All it swallows. 

Ah! my friend, you little know 
What a journey I have taken 

In this limping fashion slow — 
E^ighty past, if not mistaken, 

"Eiighty, sir, last June — to go 
There forsaken. 

You this village kilow, no doubt; 

Rest awhile, I know its people: 
Mutes of eloquence devout, 

Suffefers no more to weep ill — 
l)eath would find their chitrch without 
Marble steeple. 



A FELtOW TRAvEI<KR. 9I 

Just beyond the brooklet sleep 

Only friends whom Death would call, he 
Harkens not to those who weep, 

Nor the splash, skip, dash and sally 

Which the brook makes while its sweep 

Makes the valley. 

Coach me, friend, let me move on. 
Onward still tho' pace be creeping- — 

Nor has all my vigor gone 
When there is no charge for keeping 

Any mortal left alone 

Yet not weeping. 

Whither? yonder, well a day! 

Round about but backward neverj 
O'er this brook lead palsied clay 

To the graveyard where we sever 
V'/en farewell there I will say, 
'T is. forever- 



92 



PATHOI.0GY 01^ THARS. 



T^ARIy Neal, my son, then midway four and five, 
'^^^ Observed my awkward surgery afret 
In once extracting- from my finger — I've 
Forgotten, thorn or sliver firmly set. 



iHow deep his sympathy! With many "ohs!'* 
He gazed upon the progress fearing blood; 

And frequent sighs from his pained bosom rose> 
But never splinter came with ruddy flood. 

His wide brown eyes, a perfect mirror wrought 

Of deep reflection and philosophy, 
Materialized his thoughts if ever thought 

Wer^ palpable to the espying eye. 



TEARS 93 

I lost the thorn in study of his eyes, 
A tranceful pair; brown as my mother's, than 

My own a deeper shade — his I much prize 
For this hereditary'- potent plan. 

And viewing- the affair as baffling me 

He undiplomaed doctor as he was, 
Codes disregarding in his practice, he 

Unskilled in Galen and the statute laws 



Protecting murder in a legal way — 

(For so this quacking flock themselves protect, 
Whose methods can no commoner gainsay 

Because, forsooth, their parchments so elect; 

Experimenting on the sick to death. 
In league with sextons, patrons of the g-rave 

Before and after we dispense with breath, 
A race of ghouls no license law should save; 



94 TEARS 

In pill projectiles hurled by colleg^e rules 
They cannonade us with hot mercury; 

For whims of medicine found training- schools 
To teach humanity new ways to die) — 

Gave me his remedy oft' tested, oft' 

Exemplified in his experience — 
(Can learned doctor physic more?) in soft 

And soothing- words fraug-ht with diviner sense. 

Ivet ^sculapius take lessons here 

And all his pupils, thoug-h they amplify 

Kmollient relief sans pain, sans fear, 

None can improve Karl's surg-ery: "Pa, cry." 

These were his words, such his prescription, this 
The anodyne of pain: "Pa, cry." Tears may 

Be idle as the poet's dream, but his 

Were shed a thousand ailments to allay. 



TEARS. 95 

Tears were his case of instruments to cut 
The rooted splinter, tears the antidote 

Of every ill inflicting- childhood, but 
No tears were at command the thorn to rout. 

O Karl, physician dear past mortal ken! 

This was a sug^ared medicine to me, 
A bath of suasive oil to thorns within 

Of deeper import barbed with misery. 

That fated moment (strang-e! will tears come now?) 
We sal upon the threshold of a home 

Whose walls were crumbling-; ay, the broken vow, 
A broken home, the broken dream had come. 

The skeleton usurped the closet and 

Peace fled for passions in wild ang-uish spoken; 
Recriminations were in mad command, 

A chaos reig-ned and thus the home was broken, 



96 TEARS. 

Curse her who nursed your lips that both have kissed 
A thousand thousand times — the lump appears 

Here in my throat, before my eyes a mist, — 
Would I could cry! words come not, neither tears. 



But after all when Time heaps over us 
Grim mounds of sand, our Samson hair all shorn, 

What need of heaven to adjust abuse? 
No need of hell, Delilah's being born. 

And after all what need of physic tears 
To sympathize with self inflicted woe? 

There comes a season in the wailing- years 
When thorns prick not and tears no longer flow. 

And after all what need to fondle grief 

As if a mistress cunning with soft wiles 
To offer to the wounded heart relief. 
Her lips a mocking pleasure, false her smiles. 



TKARS. c 

Hot passions must apologize for leave 

To found vagfue hells for one whose erring life 

Burns its purgation here; cooled, they forgive 
The unrepentant mother once a wife. 

So after all when all is fully ended, 

Both briefs before the high tribunal filed 

Where arguments and palliations blend, it 
May be that Justice will rest reconciled. 

So, Time, benevolent with thorns, deny 
Their access to the heart of Earl, our son; 

Ivet no one deeper sink than what a sigh 
May pluck and one tear usher to oblivion. 



gS 



nVTiGHT in her wondrous arabesque of sky 

Star jeweled and a loitering- summer moon 
Charmed of her errand tho' the maze of June, 
Bend o'er this Court of Honor rapturously. 
Man would with Boreal colors nature vie 

In wizard art: the painted sprays enswoon 
The senses charmed; deft g-ondolas splash by 

Ming-ling- strang-e airs with Sousa's lulling tune; 
The mermaid-haunted fountain rivals all 
In g-ush; white statues busy in their pose, 
And every dome its lighted diamonds dons. 
Here is my utmiost dream, art mag'ical ! 
Ivcst the enchantment vanish I must close 

E)ach eye in turn, nor risk them both at once. 



99 



AN ARIZONA TOMB. 



I^ 



N Arizona lies 
A tomb 
To which g"lad. sunligh flies 
But leaves in g-loom; 
In it a victim slumbers; nature sig-hs 

Around it at his doom: 
And when the mDm.eats paint the shading 
Of twilight skies there come all daunted 
Thoug-hts shuddering- from chills pervading-, 
As if the tomb were haunted. 



I OO ARIZONA TOM B. 

A frig-htend rill 

Runs by 

With noisy courag-e till 

The sandplain nig-h 

I.S safely g-ained, then mock-heroic will 

Send back the coward sig-h. 
The coyotes move in troops along 
The vale below with scarcer breath; 
There hushed is every song-bird's song, 
Mute crickets are as death. 

The history? Alas! 
A word — 
Need it be written here? the glass! 
Than which ne'er heard 
Our race from lips pronouncing pass 
One courted move, or blurred. 
Still men are fools tho' drink be raging, 
And men more raging heedless still, 
Till wild contention such are waging 
Bring-s ruin, sorrow, ill. 



ARIZONA TOMB. lOI 

bsonie friend the clue 
Ga ve me 
Who thought hell's charms to woo 
So potently 
A reason furloug^hed spirits do 

Repeat their rosary 
If LfCthe twice they wander over. 
We must turn back a page unread 
^ho' haunting spirits may so hover 
Or not, above the dead. 

Two beings met, 
They loved: 
Armand and Angelet — 
How well 'twas proved! 
The one a housling rose and pet 
In famous beauty moved. 
The other manly, handsome, winning, 
But overshadowed b}^ the ban 
Of his love's sire, not for his sinning, 
He was a perfect man. 



I02 ARIZONA TOMB, 

Both to him sped 
To get 
This parent's blessing-s shed 
Upon them, yet 
Fear crossed them — they were wed, 

This Armand, Angelet. 
They knelt, confessed— but for the blessing- 
Received the father's wild anathema; 
They rose heart-sore. Them sire addressing: 
"Away!" quoth he — "but stay!" — 

"You two are wed- 
By law? — 
Would God had struck both dead, 
Or I ne'er saw 
Thee, Angelet, upon whose head 

This curse alight to awe: 
May thy hereafter know no leisure 
From prayer and misery to the hearse! 
And, Armand, thine be gall from pleasure, 
Away! Hell grant my curse." 



AlilZONA TOMB. 103 

They drooped at this 
Atid left. 
Both facing" lesser bliss 
For hearts were cleft. 
The scornful sire did at them, hiss 
Departing- spirit chafed. 
O Aramand, Angelei! O sorrow! 
Would the next page had ne'er been written; 
But turn to it, to the to-morrow 
Of these two beings smitten. 

The bride's blood froze; 
Her cheek 
Grew sterile for the rose, 
It died; nor seek 
Did she to voice her hidden woes, 

So fashioned mild and meek. 
Poor Armand saw her sadly- wither; 
His love, his fondling lost their charms 
To woo her wasting figure hither 
To his entwining arms. 



3 04 ARIZONA TOMB. 

He took to grief, 

And then, 

The g-lass. I shall be brief. — 

Nights found him in 

The gambling dens a roystering chief — 

Chief by brevet, of men. 
No home, no wife set Him^ to thinking 
Of ruin coming on apace; 
By swaggering and braggart drinking 
He ran the thorn-path race, 

Thus on and on 
Till woes 
Came trooping not alotie. 
His cherished rose 
With dual dearth was nearly gone — 

Not quite, for she arose . 
From her lone couch and by it kneeling 
Prayed: "O protect my Arniand, God, 
Arouse him to his fuller feeling 
Protect my Armand, God!" 



ART^iONA TOMB. I05 

In Arinand came 
Unheard, 
Sneaking in drunken shame. 
Coy and absurd. 
Hearing- God coupled with his name 
He paused to catch each word. 
Stirred by the prayer he vowed to follow 
Debauchery and crime no more! 
No more in mires of sin to wallow. 
By Ang-elet! he swore. 

But hell within 

Broke out; 

Mis passion rose, a ditl 

Whirling- about 

III frenzy, fiotitig- in sin. 

With orte Weird, maddeiled shout 
He g-rasped hef by the flowing- tresses 
Shrieking-, ''Madam, let you and G-od ne'er fret 
IFor Armand," struck hef — heaven bless us! 
Lo, dead lay Ang-elet! 



I06 ARIZONA TOMB, 

O he awoke 
To see 
The victim of his stroke 
And misery! 
Did. hell or rumL his soul provoke, 
Or was it Armatid free 
In power and will who did the m.urder? 
He, Armand — influence hypnotic 
Thus to refute — and nothing- further, 
Despite claims idiotic. 

Sweet Ang^elet 

I^ay dead 

Just as her lips were set 

On blessings wed 

To Armand's name. Could he forg-et 

What she and her mad sire said? 
O prayer and misery! Your mission 
Is being lengthened undiminished: 
One g-alled by pleasure and perdition. 
The other's prayer unfinished. 



ARIZONA TOMB. IO7 

He left the room. 

Upset 

Lay chair, lamp, table, broom.; 

The couch afret 

Was fumbled, but the crowning- g-loom 

Was pale, dead Ang-elet. 
He left the scene, but to him stealing- 
Came her unfinished prayer — she said: 
"Protect my Ar — " there the appealing- 
Changed voices with the dead. 

He fled the home, 

And still 

That prayer abrupt would come 

His soul to thrill; 

Whcte'er on earth would Armand roatn 

It must his nig-ht-ear fill. 
Old Mexico forg-ot the murdered. 
The cursing- sire and Armand fled 
From whom since then there was no word heard; 
The law had called him dead. 



lo8 ARIZONA TOME. 

Could he forg-et 
The stain 
Upon his fing-ers set? 
Blood marked its Clan. 
To hush the prayer of Angelet 

He noised all pleas in vain; 
!For, ever like the echoes dying- 
That aye rebounding- never die, 
On burdened winds her voice came sig-hing*- 
"Protect him, God on hig-h, 

Protect my Ar. — " 
No more, 
The voice was hushed afar; 
But every hour 
Ag-airl repeated— -it would jar 
Not silence passing- o'er 
So softly Armand heard, no other: 
Sad as the syllables of doom, 
Sweet as the vesper plaints a mother 
Breaths o'er the mossy tomb. 



ARIZONA TOMB. IO9 

He sought the mines 
Far west; 
For gold framed no designs — 
Nay, rest, for rest. 
Mid miners, gamblers, libertines 

He was forlorn, unblest. 
Gold glittered in his path unheeded; 
He squandered it in charities, 
'Twas not the panacea needed; 
His heart was ill at ease. 

Still came to him 
That prayer: 
His head would reel and swim, 
His eyeballs glare. 
His record of the world grew dim, 

Rem.orse bleached white his hair: 
For aye his sleepless hours heard stealing — 
"Protect my Armand, God, protect 
My Ar — ^" there ceased the fond appealing 
Where he the pleading checked. 



no ARIZONA TOMB. 

"O bitter woe, 

O God," 

Poor Armand murmured low, 

"I^et me not plod 

Karth evermore!" But they who sow 

The winds reap whirlv/inds. Odd, 
"lyet you and God ne'er fret for Armand," 
He rashly spoke in moments g-one; 
Thus reaped he tenfold whirlwinds' harm and 
The fretful prayer went on. 

A hermit's cell 
He dug- 
Above the mountain dell 
Where mag-ic drug- 
Nor opiate could madness quell; 

There death and life did tug 
A clamorous and frenzied season, 
Prolonging days and nig^hts with ills, 
Of hope bereft, endurance, reason — 
A fright among- the hills. 



ARIZONA TOMB. Ill 

'Tis wrong- to say 

That time 

Moons measure, for one day 

Of lives sublime 

In woe finds more sands fall'n than may 

Nile's pyramid outclimb. — 
He killed himself. Beside a river, 
The Gila's Pedro, lies his tomb; 
Above the mound the zephyrs shiver 
With nig-htfall's chilling- g-loom. 

The story g-oes 

They meet 

At sunset, but who knows? 

Our wand'ring- feet 

Must halt before the tomb of woes, 

Ivife's trag-edy complete. 
If love could leave the tomb to g-reet us, — 
We all have love-tombs somewhere prized, — 
Our doubts would find their own quietus 
And death were analyzed. 



112 



ARIZONA TOMB. 

"A inadman's grave," 
The stone 
Announces. Grass and wave 
The leg-end moan 
Where Gila's waters pitch and rave 
For motives more unknown. 
Some haunting- kindred we hereafter 
May dub the airs and hills and river; 
For here they moan or shriek in laughter 
Beside the grave forever. 

One needs not kneel 
In prayer 
Deep reverence to feel: 
The listful air 
Trembles in sympathy with some appeal 

Of sorrow richly rare; 
And after comes incessant weeping 
Dews nightly never there loan tears — 
Till dusky shadows off go creeping 
And rose-cheeked morn appears. 



ARIZONA TOMB. II3 

A city now adorns 

The vale 

Below, where cactus thorns 

The tomb empale — 

Appropriately Tombstone called — which warns 

The tourist of this tale. 
If fortune should your feet advise 
On Arizona's sands to wander, 
Approach the grave where Arniand lies 
And o'er his madness ponder:— 

Our action bring-s 

To eyes 

And hearts beyond us, stings, 

Joys, tears and sighs; 

To innocence our evil clings 

And there the moral lies. 
Heirs may hereafter know no leisure 
From prayer and misery to the hearse 
Because we quaff the gall of pleasure, 
Bequeathing- but a curse. 



114 " ARIZONA TOMB. 

In Arizona lies 

The tomb 

To which sad sunlig"ht hies 

To leave in g-loom; 

There nature squanders liberal sig"hs 

To mollify the doom, 
lyet twilig-ht's spirit count her beads 
And finish her enchanted prayer 
For Armand most his Ang-el needs 
Where we must leave the pair. 



1^5 



A CYNIC'S TALE. 

A MINISTE^R to China whose full name 

Is cloaked in darkness by indifferent fame. 
Among- celestials sat at royal feast — • 
One emperor, moguls the rest at least; 
Not being- up on Chinese words, confound themi 
Was down, of course, at jabber speech around him. 
Without translation every dish he ate 
Was strang-ely easy to amalgamate 
With his American star-spang-led blood, 
Especially one dish seemed mig-hty good; 
And scheming to induce the western cook 
To introduce it later, undertook 
To question at his elbow sallow Johng-. 
About this meat so famous in Hong" Kong. 
The g-ourmand soon resolved in his sly brain 
The mode of speech that would the secret g-ain. 



ii6 ■ cynic's tai^k. 

He turned upon the oriental dude 

Wrapped in a miracle of mag-nitude, 

Who g-raced the seat of honor at his rig-ht 

With fing-er pointing- to the mess in sight — 

His sapient demeanor much enhanced 

By elevated brows and chin advanced, 

You could observe his vanity lean back 

As he complacently inquired, "Quack, quack?' 

None better knew than he it was no duck 

But to dissolve a doubt this method took. 

The shocked Celestial with a proud disdain 

Curled lip and nostril in neg-ation plain; 

No rag-g-ed g-amin on the street could jaw, 

Disg-ust personified, more awful "naw!" 

Then on our diplomat with scowling- brow 

Growled in canine vernacular, "Bow, wow!" 

"Dog- dast the Chinese!" thoug-ht the minister 

When panic in his stomach 'g-an to stir; 

The amphitheater within his brain 

Inclosed a combat fearful in its strain 

In which the Will and Fancj' tug-g-ed amain. 



cynic's tale. 117 

But in his stornach greater battle raged 

Where dog chased duck an awful turmoil wag-ed. 

The Fancy proved victorious in the brain; 

Below, the vanquished duck, was sadly slain. 

His head revolved and then revolved his food 

Till over China, ware and fare, he spewed. 

Expelled the empire at next council, now 

He snarls ki-yi, snaps, barks and bays bow wow! 

An insane minister become crazed from it 

His fancy dog--like runs to his own vomit. 

The diplomat should be abandoned straig-ht 

Had not philosophers beg^un to prate 

Ag-ainst the wisdom of celestial diet 

A morsel sweet however they denj' it. 

These veg"etarians make feasts of reason, 

Serve "dog- eat dog-" their pickeled wit for season; 

Above board masticate infernal humors, 

For vegetables pose as sturdy boomers; 

Vitellus chide because he ate an ox 

That ate their grass — upon them all a pox! 

So mad I sret at all their theoretics. 



Il8 • cynic's TAtE\ 

Their hjg'ienic laws and shilly ethics, 

In doubt embroiling" every simple question 

That patience dies and with it g-ood dig-estionj 

A note opposed to their vile dog-mas you make, 

Man 's not controlled by what pervades his stomach. 

Some dupes there are who fancy that the bread 

In Shakespeare's craw put Hamlet in his head; 

And that, to amplify the thoug-ht profane. 

In Rare Ben's stomach it had wroug-ht the Dane. 

A rose in any garden is inclined 

Rare bloom and odor in the earth to find, 

While by its side skunk-cabbag-e will, I think, 

Absorb from rose-nursed v^oil its shocking- stink. 

To rose or weed the selfsame soil supplies 

Conflicting odors, color color vies. 

For reasons founded on this solemn fact 

Their table conduct shows some brains half-cracked; 

And one I now remember, an example 

Of eaters who may prove a fair example. 

Was Oscar Wilde, the poet, dude, or what not, 

Who sat at meal an hour or more and got naught; 



cynic's tai^e. 119 

But on a flower feasted eye and nose 

Till from the table hung-erless he rose. 

The waiter marveled, bill of fare declined, 

While flowery Oscar tipped: "Thanks; I have dined.'' 

Do you believe a meal of so much sentiment 

Is worthy blistered hellroom — worth a cent, I meant? 

No? Neither I. But what I first essayed 

In mock-heroic couplets to dissuade, 

An idea so popular of late, 

Is, what we think proceeds from what we ate. 

The minister, exception you may raise, 

"Who ate the dog- now as a luneling bays; 

Wilde Oscar to support the opposition 

May too be cited from the superstition 

Prevailing- now atavic in its power. 

Admitting- he reverted to a flower. 

Withal, environment is g-reater matter 

Than diet, g-ranting- plent3^ to the latter. 

Our dreams are shaded by our latest meal, 

Ang-els or nio;hthag's as the meats reveal. 

So comes it that the supper has control 



120 CYNIC S TAI^E. 

O'er preg-nant matter of the sleeping- soul. 

And what pervades the stomach, odd exceptions, 

Is but the chyle of fancy's own deceptions, 

Or fowl or dog- as man each likes or loathes 

He tumbles into rhapsodies or oaths. 

Meats as an influence have divers powers 

Unsuited to the fop who dines on flowers; 

These delicate for airy thoughts enhance 

The azure flig-hts peculiar to romance; 

While those equip for earth the mail-clad thoug-ht 

That for inankind and robust reason foug-ht. 

Serve Cleopatra hearts of turtle doves 

When she would revel in ambrosial loves; 

Within the ruby wine dissolve a jewel 

When to her bosom's flame consig-ning fuel; 

But if she would a sea fight win, then feed her 

Substantial beef or pluck will supersede her; 

Without this stronger diet, I repeat, 

She will be food for asps or Caesar's meat. 

To verify this theory I appeal 

To history for what its tales reveal. 



CYNICS TAtE. 121 

The Indian is savage not because 
His crown of feathers borrows eag-le's claws, 
Nor yet for reason of the wild deer food 
That warms the current of his fiery blood; 
This game predicament would be unlucky 
In taming- Boone, the hunter of Kentucky. 
Hence, I aver, give ear to this you ought, 
All kinds of meat will furnish food for thought. 
Moreover, brains their tendril nerves send forth 
To forage on material of worth 
For thought-construction in the workshop head, 
Rejecting, brainy builder, stones for bread. 
In following this tale with close attention 
You note no failure adverse views to mention; 
Dsnying which approach the feast in revel, 
Go as a glutton after to the devil. 



122 



CARDS. 

Whist: 
Ivife is a g-ame of whist: from unseen sources 

The cards are shuffled and the hands are dealt; 
Yet no one can control them, for the forces 

That act unseen are no less strong-ly felt. 

— lornquilL 

"XXTHIST, Ironquill, is merely an exotic 
Quite unbecoming- any loyal sport; 
Americans appear unpatriotic 

Who with our blulif g-ame are not en rapports 

You know my meaning-? Doubtful as to "/" 
I asked a Frenchman, my g-ood friend Broquet, 

About pronouncing- it or not, said he: 

"In whist all thing's are silent— in a way." 

Shoot voiceless whist! Lfife is a g-ame of poker: 
Men brag- and bluff and win for having- sand; 

Despite the cards men who repine when broke err 
The brilliant nerve outranks the master hand. 



CARDS. 123 

Let Ware seek honors of the courtly whist; 

A bobtail deal me, or a pair of deuces — 
Naj^, worse — a measly kilter if you list, 

And at life's showdown g-amble who the g"oose is. 

The Joker: 

TV^ING Georg-e the ^hird asked John Home Tooke 

A g-ame of cards to play; 
The wit in sarcasm humbly spoke 

What time can not g-ainsay: 
"My liegfe, your pardon I must crave, 
I know not even King- from, knave." 

Forimies: 

A PACK of cards, much like mankind^ 
We with these complications find: 
In distribution of the parts 
Observe clubs, diamonds, spades and hearts. 
Wealth, diamonds: lucky they 
Who either find along- the way. 



1-24 CARDS. 

When coupled with a robust health 

The world no equal has to wealth; 

Althoug-h its owner be a vampire 

He g-overns women, men and empire; 

Ay, if a diamond, he at bay 

Will throug-h all hindrance cut his way. 

To diamonds draw and play them well; 

They'll beat the devil out of hell. 

And some aver, what we repeat here, 

They turn the head and bolts of Peter* 

The sainted turnkey of the skies 

Where Dives has to exercise 

The lowly camel's strateg-y 

Before the portals passes he. 

Not to dig-ress: — The needle's e^^e, 

Throug-h which the camel needs must hie, 

A stone arched gate of low desig-n 

Was, not a needle superfine, 

So loaded camels stooping crawled 

Into Jerusalem rock walled. 

Thus comes it that the rich man's soul 



CARDS. 125 

By stooping- worms throug-h anj^ hole 
Of upper Zion, as well niig-ht 
Humped Dives or a Campbellite. 
But to the subject let us back 
Turn our attention. Take the pack — 
Do me the kindness now to turn 
A card for w^hat there is to learn: 
A club for war — a readj^ g-uess, 
A bloody business none the less. 
I do not claim the vision g-iven 
To seventh son of son No. VII, 
Nor in the wiles of divination 
Subvert my art to sink a nation; 
But that calm country is the best 
Which by the club is governed least. 
The fates of countries we maj^ find 
Applies as well to human kind: 
Who wields the arrant club to g^ain 
Desired ends is half insane — 
I should say wholly, were it wise 
The wrath of warriors to despise. 



126 CARDS. 

Shun clubs: If you would win the day 
Persuade, plead, arg-ue, reason — na.y, 
Solicit, coax — or if the foe 
Persistent hang, the point foreg-o; 
Rather submit to proud defeat 
Than with. a club the numskull beat. 
Contention is the bane of ease. 
Who would be happy must love peace: 
Disputes breed war a blatant shame 
To fire with blood a transient name. 
And clubs add fuel to the flame. 
Enoug-h of clubs, indeed, too much 
Has now been wasted on the butch- 
er of the ag-es whose vile looks 

("Grim visaged war" per other bard. 
If one must here "speak by the card,") 
Are all the histories of the books. 
A card, please — Hearts, O loving- hearts! 
That will exhaust our rhyming- arts. 
The symbol is, precisely, love. 
No hearts no love — remove your glove: 



CARDS. 127 

Is 3'our hand warm, or cold is it? 

The temperatures are opposite — 

Cold hands implj^ warm hearts and vice 

Versa, warm hands denote hearts icy. 

You do not it believe? Nor I; 

Warm hearts with warmth must hands supply. 

But recollect my scheme is not 

To fabricate the destined lot; 

I read the card, announce the will 

Ordaining- what fate must fulfill; 

And, therefore, must I here repeat 

Traditions, follow in the feet 

Of wandering- ag-es, ycleped old, 

Whose dog-ma is — hands warm, hearts cold. 

However, I take liberij^ 't 

Is not a rule that holds with feet: 

A being- who has this cold member 

Airs in her heart the shrill December. 

June's face deceives by warmer smile. 

Her foot betra3^s the heart the while. 

Say that your wife soft sleep to mock 



128 ■ CARDS. 

Her cold foot places where the shock 
Electrifies the spinal column, 
Then tell me, if you can be solemn 
In serious words of log-ic's mig-ht, 
Can such an iceberg-'s heart be rig-ht? 
All this with cards has naug-ht at all; 
Yet, easy conversational 
Excursions here in verse must voice 
Our predilections forced by choice. 
You turned a heart. Consider, then, 
What signifies a heart to men; 
With women poets all contend 
It is the middle, prime and end. 
Includes all parts, their be-all here. 
Full sway therein their proper sphere; 
And Byron held "It 's woman's whole 
Existence," writing- of some soul 
Intensified by passions, we 
Admit it in the maid Haidee. 
A mooted question for the ermine 
Judiciallv soon to determine— 



CARDS. 129 

The law's delsij proverbial 

Is grown, so courts would, sir, be all 

Of twenty centuries at codes 

And precedents and episodes 

Out of the drift and current tide 

Of law before they could decide 

If men have hearts, and (please move nearer) — 

Their lawful judgment would be error. 

This serious dispute may well 

Employ earth's parliaments to tell 

On due inquiry, if there dwell 

In bossoms male, a human heart 

Whose love is something more than art. 

Tell me at what it aims unless 

Gross passions and huge selfishness: 

Or candidly, unless half crazy. 

Has man a heart? now, has he? has he? 

You cannot answer. Who the devil 

The mystery can then unravel? 

You are upon my pen impaled; 

Squirm not, a million others failed. 



I30 CARDS. 

Believe me, what man calls his heart 

Unsetisitive is as a wart 

Ridging- the dermise of a toad 

O'er which he in his dungfcart rode. 

Men love themselves, and for a season. 

Divest themselves of cooler reason. 

Imagining" that state of thought 

A stage of love which love is not. 

They pawn for women all their wealth, 

l/ose honor, glory, virtue, health; 

And when despeptic then would prove 

Their stomach's pangs allied to love. 

The Gypsy harlot of the Nile's 

O'erflowing slum employed her wiles 

In snaring Caesar to her arms 

Where Antony confessed her charms 

With feasts and wines, with sighs and laughter; 

In ribald slavery thereafter. 

You may or may not call this passion, 

I^xamples of the fervid trash on 

The pages of seductive books: 



CARDS. 131 

We merely say, like love it looks. 

And there was saintly Abelard, 

A subject for enamored bard, 

With Heloise his abbess flame, 

To carve himself a splendid name; 

Ivove-characters yet warmer none 

Has bold imagination shown 

In history or wild romance 

Than these two lovers dear of France. 

Hearts more devoted no one knows, 

Not Juliet and Romeo's. 

But how far fiction now grown dim 

As history, embellished them 

We cannot know. 'Tis idle breath 

To say that twenty years in death 

The fleshless arms of Heloise 

Wide opened to emparadise 

The lover late entombed. I must 

Embalm this fiction with their dust; 

Or brand the story — do not take 

Exception to the slang — a fake. 



132 CARDS. 

A mad Italian once wa-s known 
For Ivaura wed to rhyme and moan; 
But Petrarch is the laug-hing- stock 
Of wiser ag-es now that mock 
His famous (undeserving- fame) 
Ivove-laureled sonnets and his name. 
She was a married matron who 
His sonnets nor his passion knew: 
She had no need of poet suitor, 
A husband's love she found to suit her; 
Although I must confess that I^raura 
Possessed a faithful heart no more a 
Component part of modern woman 
Whose love for Juan proves her human. 
Pet's love was simply figurative 
Adorned by fancy's mood creative; 
'Twas nothing (call me not unkind) 
But love emotions in the mind. 
Ivove in the head can never dwell — 
Who can be wise and love, was well 
Inquired into by L^ord Bacon, 



CARDS. 133 

Or Mr. Shakespeare, if mistaken 
The cryptograms that now so rave on 
A whim to cheat the Bard of Avon. — 
(And here I niig-ht devote a pag-e 
To settle this contentious rage, 
But will not for the claim, is silly — 
Says Delver: "It is, will he, nil he, 
He goes," the g-oodman Delver whom 
To build unto the crack of doom 
The mason, shipwright, carpenter 
Most vainly rival, I concur; 
He goes with me — or, rather, stays 
The author of the "so-called plays.") 
Ivove were we speaking of? not worse I 
Conceive than Bacon's controversy. 
1^0 ve must be found we said at start, 
Not in the head but in the heart. 
(A further license to digress 

This opportunity affords: 
For heads I^ord Bacon stands, no less 

Than Shakespeare with the heart accords.) 



134 CARDS. 

We speak of hearts: If men were wise 

To scan this life with cloudless eyes. 

They would a woman's love endeavor 

To grapple to their hearts forever. 

As for a man's love, we, alas! 

Must do as he does, let it pass. 

How easily may love depart 

From burly man's mercurial hearti 

L<et his fair amorosa slip, 

Or woo a strang-er to her lip; 

Be caug-ht romancing- with a friend, 

And all his love is at an end. 

But her devotion truly won 

Makes her a martyr to the one; 

Crime-tarnished, sinful, ever he 

Rests safe in her idolatry. 

So cherish hearts. A law there is 

To find out true affinities; 

A yearning- precept here I write: 

Beware of love impelled at sight. 

Another is of kindred force: 



CARDS. i35 

Quick wedding-s bring- as quick divorce. 

These do not warrant dilatory 

Proceeding's in the lover's story; 

For nothing- under starlit skies 

Is so distressing- as dumb sig-hs. 

If you would play the g-ame of hearts 

By nature tutored, Ovid's arts, 

Or other learned formulas — 

"Woo like a king- and win the loss; 

As Dryden intimated where 

He feasts the Greek heroic pair, 

*'None but the brave deserve the fain" 

EJnough of love, of hearts enoug-h, 

No more of amatory stuff — 

Mere vapor of the bossom blown 

To nothing-ness when all is known. 

The last card turn: A spade! well said, 

The last to ling-er with us dead. 

Spades sig-nify the curse of sin, 

Toil, dreary toil, the crossboned g-rin; 

The sweating doom of Adam curs'd. 



I • CARDS. 

For toil and death were spades made first. 

Shun toil, shnn death, shun spades, shun sweat, 

May admonition is a threat; 

For lives are saddest that with these 

Their trifling- hours rob of ease. 

Spades, spades! Do you not comprehend 

A dreary, hissing-, double end 

Of sibilants in that sad word, 

The deadest ever mortal heard? 

Spades — toil, tears, sweat: there is the hell 

Of which the church is wont to tell; 

Destruction, death are in the term — 

A trench of fate without a berme. 

Spades, spades! avoid the g-loomy spades 

Till death envelops you in shades. 

Now nig-ht approaches, death's forerunner. 

With m.onster appetite that sooner 

Or later (lay the dollar, please, 

There on my book) we must appease; 

An appetite we all must cloy • 

When spades and earth enshroud the joy 



CARDS. 137 

Of life, love, war, wealth, toil and tears — ' 

The period of blooming- years; 

Death stops us all, the heart-beat too, 

The heartache — true all have it, true! 

The final, ultimate collapse 

Of this org-anic force, perhaps — 

And all life's purpose dare to fine us 

For breathing friend, and so the finis. — 

Where did you place the filthy stuff? 

O here it is.^Of spades enoug^h, 

Distress and tears; avoid them, friend, 

They come at last, and there an end- 



t33 



HDITH. 

^ I ^HKRlv is outside the train a mourner too, 

Beyond the sable obsequies that move 
In funeral line. Hearts are as warm, as true. 

Tears are as burning-, love more likely love, 
Affections touched and tendered by one who 

Could not amid the g-roup her feelings prove. 
The tomb is now your home? To it I turn 
In thoug-hts, till flowers bloom, and talk and moum. 

Who can preceive a flower is mine or theirs? 

None will uproot it, for the neig-hboring- pod 
Perchance there bursting" cast it, — or the airs 

Of summer-land. And if the friendly sod 
Do bravely for our flower that declares 

Our sisterlove inamortal as the God 
Who inade Us sisters, aiid yourself unleafned 
In hate, 1*11 deeni my love you have not spurned. 



You were the last to kiss me of them all; 

O dead lips, think of this tho' foes beguile 
Its tenderness! You were the first to call 

A welcome at the door, the last to smile 
And clap the hand at parting-; 'mid the gall^ 

The bitter, so much honey-sweet; and while 
Thoughts hold I shall not this forget 
In kindly l^dith, my sweet sister yet. 

Tears now, and a cold grave, but after, Spring! 

Then to the tiny mound, — Magic and lyife! 
Up come the flowers, you sent them up, to bring 

Me sympathy. Ijach petal deemed a leaf, 
BJach flower a written letter answering 

My flower of rhyme, thus hearing even deaf, 
Speaking yet dumb. O run, tears, run, slow hour^, 
Unto the Spring, unto the time of flowers! 



140 



THE RED, RED WEST. 



Give me no home 

'Neath the pale, pink dome 

Of E^uropean skies — 
No cot for me 
By the salmon sea 

That far to the southward lies: 
But away out west 
I would build my nest 

On top of a carmine hill, 
Where I can paint 
Without restraint 

Creation redder still. 



—Eiige?i€ Field. 



Correct, my 'Gene, 

Is your whim, I ween, 

Regarding our red West— 
Where the lurid hues 
Are the sanguine views 

Men hold till one cannot rest; 
You may paint our head, 
E^'en creation red — 

Those red still a redder glow; 
But pass one law, 
A good old saw, 

And let the white horse sfo. 



o 



141 



INEZ' SONG. 

(FROM KING'S TOYS.) 

NE) prayer — (frustrated chords, sing- low, 
Ivow as my heart, guitar.) 
Convey to Captain I^over, 
A soldier and a rover. 

If love be pain, love g-o — no, no! 

(A jar, o'erlook the jealous jar.) 
L<ove, go not: no, no, no. 

O mellow murmurs to him say, 
Ivow as a maiden kiss. 
That if love g-o aflowering 
He dare not be o'erpowering, 

Then guilty flee away — nay, nay! 

(O serpent strings, you hiss.) 
I^ove never flees; naj^, nay. 



142 



TO A SKUI.L. 

\ STORY, Yorick, Dweller of the Cliff, 

Whose tong-ueless skull is hollow as the grave, 
A story of thy being- let us have. 
Say, seeing you are purely human, if 
From Adam's loins, or g-otten of a chief 
"Whose paradise was this ill-favored cave; 
How lived, how perished? You were never brave, 
Rock-hedg-ed impreg-nably as Teneriffe: 
Some vag-ue protectionist with narrow views 
To shut out prog-ress; some crazed populist 

Who stored his grain lest millionaires would 
grow; 
Some chimney-corner wit. — lycave you no clues? 
No histories nor autographs exist; 

"Alas, poor Yorick!" you I cannot know. 



H3 



TO PROF. W. H. WYNN. 

TJTOW long- will pens be silent with their fate? 
In private study thrilled? It is not meet 
Behind the door to quaff this water, stolen-sweet, 
Intoxicating as the draught is; wait 
No long-nr to be reckoned poet great, 

Fearing some measure stagger on its feet; 
Publish your rhymes and let the critic greet 
"With smile or frown. Ivong years can not abate — 
(For two and twenty years the same, in truth, 
The wide-eyed boy admiring rhymes you wrought) 
The love I felt for them, the love for you 
And them I feel, a love begun when youth 
lyooked up to lips mellifluent and thought 
The bees must find their later Plato too. 



144 



TI^RIEND, say of me if I should ever die— 

For death is problematical at best, 
Because anticipated by analog-y 

Of logic's supple weapons deemed the least: — 
"There lies a fellow who imagined he 

Was born to live; and, rather curious! 
Did live his life both fast and furious 

Through some odd years or mayhap even, 
Without a thought of hell or heaven, 
And doubtful of the end or immortality. 
He was a complicated mess of dust — 

Good bad, indiiferent in more than one way; 
And now the grave her mantle must 

Throw over all that here remains of Conway. 



H5 



THE SONNET. 

"\TTRITEi fourteen lines distributing- the rhyme 
As fancy's unconventional taste please, — 
A common pretext may be found in these, 
And follow octave with repeating- chime 
In sestet as an echo marked in time: 

Return, recede, diminish, till they cease — 
Exemplifying- waves of rhapsodies, 
But pause, if possible, with this line I'm 
Unable to control. I did not cite 

The rule, ten syllables compose each verse; 
Involve the sense so Bacon could not con it; 
Convey one thoug-ht, one only, thoug-h you write 
One hundred forty words such to rehearse — 
And there you have contrived the famous sonnet. 



146 



THE SUICIDE. 

TTTHO can with mental plummet sound the deep, 
Sufficient wave of ag-onizing- care 
That with the energ-y of mad despair 
Stirred thy sore bosom so to woo death's sleep, 
O sorry suicide? lyife cannot heap 
Its surg-ing- griefs so hig-h, or bleach the hair 
With faded hopes as to make heroes dare 
Into the mystic future thus to peep. 
And yet thou wast heroic, must have been, 
To die by thine own hand so skillfully; 
In time alone harmonious with death, 
The action prompt — dramatic, save in scene. 
The ox and ass solicited to sig'h 

At, moribund barnstormer, thy last breath. 



147 



THE POET. 

\ BEAM of lig-ht hurled pell mell by the sun 

Thro' utter darkness seeks its illstarred way, 
Blind mole of space, without a g-limmered ray 
To light the visored tale its fancy spun, 
In utmost void a suicide mad run, — 

Unless, perchance, some rambling- world, that may 
- Possess congenial atmosphere, delay 
Its course a burning moment, then is done. 
So runs the poet his own soul illumed 

By fires internal, darkness to famed eyes, 
Save when athwart responsive medium 
He dazzling into splendor, all consumed 
In passions brilliant for the moment, dies; 
Merged thus all eloquent, avoiding dum. 



148 



Truth alone is beauty. 

—Plato, 

^TTlTHIN the intellect all beauty lies 

Of form or substance, attribute or deed; 
As who can say this is a flower or weed 
From wealth of odorous colors, if the eyes 
Of nosing- analyst could not apprise [feed 

The chambered judgment — whom five sumpters 
Of all they forage in the garnered mead, — 
Of vague suggestions bookish earth supplies. 
No annotations on the margins penned 

Convey the groupings pleasure would exact; 
No variorum comment on the plan 
Whose ultimate rejoicing is the end 

Whsre fancy rambling deeper than the fact 
Sees truth alone as beautiful in man. 



SEA FOAM. 



The followbig fragment is from SEA 
FOAM J canto /, a poem conducted years ago 
as far as three cantos, but unfinished. This 
much is inserted here in order to /i?iish a siX' 
teenth folder. Captain Kidd is hero of the 
poem, Rosa his mistress, and hies their daugh- 
ter. The scene is Havana. 



SEA FOAM. 151 

xr^ix. 

^ I ^HE^ evening- revelry was therefore ended, 

And late delaying- footsteps homeward strolled 
From Almo's mansion. Nig-ht and silence blended; 

The pulsing- Seabreeze, weary g-rown and cold, 
The circled verg-e with Hesperus descended 

To cool the hot sun boiling- molten g-old 
Behind the sea. All were prepared for rest 
Save Inez whom her maids for slumber dressed. 

ly. 
They left her; and their absence was relief. 

About her anxious iips one could descry 
The twitching-s of a melancholy g-rief 

That unappeased stole forth a stifled sigh; 
And on the sudden her whole frame, a leaf ^ 

Or harpstring- filliped, trembled; by and by 
She g-rew herself, and on the couch reclining- 
Resolved by sleep to end her vag-ue divining-. 

She could not slumber. Where the moonbeams' flare 

Flecked patches thro' a casement rich in art. 
By parted curtains screened, half languid, bare. 



152 SEA FOAM. 

She lay within her careless robes apart, 
Dreaming- of her Francisco, she the fair 

Ophelia to the Hamlet of his heart; 
Invoking- dreams reclined she sig-hing-, weeping-, 
While thievish moonbeams stole about iher peeping-. 

I.II. 
I^ove languishing- she rose ag-ain; her head 

Soft pillowed erst, long-ed for a fondling- palm. 
"O night's somnific spell, O love!" she said, 

"If I like this hushed world could be acalm!" 
Then all above the window casing- laid 

Her arms and shoulders for nig-ht's mellow balm, 
While her sad breast moon-charmed as the sea 
In rolling- billows heaved from wind to lee. 

IvIII. 
O could they see her eyes star-g-azing- then 

While in the pathos of a lang-uid stare, 
It would emblazon on the hearts of men 

A spiritual look divinely fair. [when 

Fring-ed lids trailed from bowed brows, as curtains 

From arches trailing; her lips parted were 



SEA FOAM. 153 

Ivike opening- poppies drowsy in the morning- 
With dewdrops in their folds as teeth adorning-. 

I.IV. 
Her cheeks submerg-ed annotto with the hue 

Of fading- roses; and her dang-ling- hair 
In disconnected clusters, broug-ht to view 

By most provoking- g-usts of wooing air, 
About her dangled, yet oft' back she threw . 

The veiling tresses streaming everywhere; 
But of her eyes — 'twould be no great surprise 
If every stanza told about her eyes. 

IvV. 
There is a lurking telltale ever haunts 

The region of the eyes. When any soul 
Is charged with feeling the tongue taunts 

Expectant ears, conversing eyes control 
The wires of electric glances, slants 

Unutterable things and speaks a language whole; 
The rhetoric* of eyes with bards is hoary, 
But hers discoursed in wondrous oratory. 

♦Shakespeare: Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye — 
Shirley: Thy eyes express some rhetoric. 



154 SEA FOAM. 

I.VI. 
Indeed she is the beauty of the south. 

Fresh as her blossoms, as her spring-tide mild, 
And dark of eye as nig-ht. Her kiss-fond mouth 

Would turn the lips and bow of Eros wild; 
I'll dye the lily if you paint her youth, 

I'll drape her bosom amorously piled. 
Protruding in fond mischief, if you free 
Her rhythmic step upbraiding- harmony. 

IvVII. 
There on the casement leaning lone as night 

And watched by the rude eyes of sensual stars. 
The lovely Inez dreamed. These dreams one nig-ht 

Call abstract moonshine, true love's shilly cares, 
Perplexing- dreams: she merely had a sig-ht 

Of her Francisco. In her witching- snares 
Some potent rival caug-ht him with weird shyness — 
When all unwarned she heard his whispered "Inez." 

lyVIII. 
The daring- sound alarmed her. She withdrew 

Her shapely shoulders; round her naked knees 
And breast exposed she drew her robes in awe; 



SEA FOAM. 155 

With cautions fear she peered into the trees — 
O g-rand delig-ht! she her Francisco saw. 

They whispered words inipalpable^the breeze 
Was up and noisy, — but I saw hitn climb 
Up to her window in a moment's time. 
I^IX. 

veil your blushing" faces, virg-ins chaste, 
Whose cold, thin lips have never met a kiss; 

And, startled matrons, hide your eyes in haste 
If you deem Inez has preformed amiss; 

She in this dishabille shocks ultra taste 

Of some who urg-e g-ood breeding-, true it is; 

But I am of opinion, say hers are ill, 

That morals and not rags are best apparel. 
IvX. 

They kissed, — Inez, Francisco — 'tis no fancy. 
For lovers in such thralling- moods seek bliss; 

1 never could, nor do believe I can, see 
More eloquence in lips than when they kiss; 

There 's no deception in its necromancy — 

Who kiss must love (off, Judas! that's not this.) 



156 SEA FOAM. 

I love a kiss, prudes call it freedom; never! 
'Tis bondage, for a kiss enthralls forever. 

I^XI. 
In strong- embrace of lock-linked arms entwining- 

These pure exponents of love's happiness 
Sat heart to heart and cheek to cheek inclining. 

Fond as two souls can be in such excess 
Of love; both tranquil, for no undermining 

Rival was watching near to mar their bliss — 
Tho' love is deeper set by difficulties, 
From our conservatories we may all cull this. 

IvXII. 
A certain king* in painting, done by Ingres, 

For the amusement of his children played 
Horse on his hands and knees — nor would it injure 

High dignity; — thus sportive all arrayed 
Came an ambassador of pride to linger 

In face-lit wonder at the figure made. 
The flunkey would die first than do so, rather; 
The monarch laughed, "O wait till you're a father!" 

*Henry IV of France, the famous Heurj- of Navarre. 



SKA FOAM. 157 

You mock true lovers, probably, when they 
Are billing, cooing-, squandering- so many 

Rapt hours, soft speech, deep kisses in dismay? 
Then g-uy no more, 'tis idle; for if any 

Convenient season come you cannot play 
Both Jupiter and Cupid; near some canny 

And wistful maid all must to love uncover — 

Dissenting rogue, O wait till you're a lover! 

LrXIV. 

They sat upon the window fond as love 

"When painted in a picture, and so near 
Together that one moonbeam from above 

Was crushed to death between them; not a fear 
Had they but every dream their fancies wove 

In curtains veiling each approaching year 
Would outline heart's ease, make one sunny clime 
To gild their castle in the realm of time. 

IvXV. 
There was religion in their chaste embrace 

Out-tonguing any moral argument; 
For, thoug^h a careless robe her form did grace, 



158 . SEA FOAM. 

Or sntig-ly clasp her yielding-, fair extent, 
Francisco idolized her rarest face 

With fondest eyes and lips all negligent, 
Parted when kissed, and kissed in parting, heart 
Close up to lips that never meant to part. 

IvXVII. 
The low moon's streamers sloping down the sky 

Cast silver mantles half about the twain; 
It was the moment when they planned to fly 

From friend, foe, Cuba to the sun-kissed Spain 
Whose ship upon the shore weighed anchor nigh. 

The scene was changed to action. In a train 
Of ample silks enrobed she few tears shed, 
Then with Francisco to the waters fled. 

LXVIII. 
We leave them for awhile upon the sea. 

Old Neptune, keep your storming furies low; 
And, rugged ship, rock gently, tenderly 

When swaying with the billows to and fro. 
My drowsy reader, you would better be 

In bed — go to your prayers and couch * "^ * 



